Mater Semper Certa Est
by jugglequeen
Summary: The title translates into "the mother is always certain" and is a Roman law principle. Its meaning is that the mother of a child is always known. The story is set some time after 'Home Again' but before 'My Struggle II'. Sequel to this story: Pater Vero
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:**  
I started watching TXF only recently - Thank you, Ladies, for acquainting me with the series, you know who you are! - and became a shipper right away. This is my first Mulder-and-Scully fanfic. I tried my best to stay in-character, although I'm still in a phase of getting to know them (haven't watched all episodes yet). Reviews are highly appreciated.

 **Disclaimer:**  
I don't own any of the characters.

* * *

"Seriously, Mulder? You promise me a fun afternoon and then you drive me through the country for half a day only to drag me into a high school gym for a basketball game? Are you out of your mind?"

Scully is whining, but if she's honest, she's grateful that Mulder has picked her up from work to include her in whatever he's up to. She's overdone it again lately, working double shifts and literally begging for on-call shifts silently hoping she would indeed get a call. She behaves like this once in a while when her personal situation threatens to overwhelm her. She prefers to numb herself with work instead of allowing the pain to get the better of her; the nagging pain at the failure of her relationship with Mulder, the agonizing pain at her mother's sudden passing, and of course the never subsiding pain at the loss of her only son.

She will never admit it in front of Mulder, of course, although it's quite probable he knows. He knows her well, not believing her whenever she assures him she's fine. There's been only one time in her life when she felt misunderstood and left alone by him, and it had made her leave their home eventually. But some things are never meant to change and being able to engage Mulder in a friendly banter is one of those things.

"You really know how to spoil a girl!"

"Stop complaining, Scully, would you? I got us great seats," Mulder says, being in the best mood obviously, completely ignoring her sarcastic undertone. "Sit down, I'll get us something to drink."

"I definitely need a beer to get through this!"

"This is high school basketball, Scully, no beer! Coke?"

"Sure. Fine. Whatever."

Mulder scoots off. Scully stays behind and sits down on one of the special court side plastic chairs in front of the gym's bleachers. She's surprised by how many people seem to be interested in the game. It's a huge, well-equipped modern gymnasium with a sprung wooden floor and drop down curtains to divide it into smaller units for practice. This is obviously a high school where sports is important, and basketball in particular. A huge banner has been put up saying 'Welcome to the home of the Hilltoppers', the host team.

Scully feels beamed back into the time when she was a high school student. She'd never been very interested in basketball but she remembers being interested in a player called Jason Fitch once, a hunky boy two years older than she who was the star of the basketball team of her school. She was so nuts about him that she had volunteered to keep the score book for a season, spending more time watching basketball she ever imagined possible. One day she had to accept that Jason didn't have the slightest interest in short, astute redheads but rather fell for simple-minded blondes with big boobs.

Mulder returns with a somewhat contrite look on his face. "They don't have Coke. I got you a Dr. Pepper."

"Now that does it! A nice restaurant hasn't crossed your mind, Mulder, has it? If you want to watch this stupid game, go ahead! Don't bother about me, I think I saw a bus stop outside."

"Don't be silly," Mulder replies, "Trust me. You're gonna like it."

"Like what? What are we doing here?"

"We're gonna see good basketball, that's for sure! This is the final tournament of a scouting summer camp. Some of America's most promising basketball talents are playing. We might see a few of them in the NBA at some point in time and you'd be able to say you already saw them play when they were still unknown amateurs."

Scully looks at Mulder and is surprised about how excited he is. He's a sports maniac, okay, interested in all kinds of sports, but high school basketball? Scully would rather believe a Knicks game was his cup of tea, but the Hilltoppers? She sighs. She can think of a hundred other things she would like to do on this day instead of sitting inside a stifling high school gym filled with screaming pubescent teenagers. If it had to be sports for Mulder, why not baseball? The night he taught her how to hit still belonged to the best moments of her life. So why basketball for heaven's sake?

Maybe he needs it, Scully thinks. It's not been easy for Mulder to cope with her leaving the house, and she knows he misses her mother just like she does. Mrs. Scully never hid the fact that she liked Mulder dearly, and she was very upset when her daughter told her she couldn't hold on to her relationship with him anymore. And of course the loss of William. It must have been even harder for him, for he never had the chance to say goodbye to his son. If it does Mulder good, if it brings him joy, she can watch a basketball game for two hours. Riding a sticky motorcoach home wasn't really appealing anyway.

"Okay, Mulder, if you want this so badly I'll stay, but only if you promise to take me to a nice little restaurant for dinner and a beer when we're done here."

"Shhh, Scully, the players are coming!"

Not used to being shushed by him, Scully inhales sharply. "Mulder, do you have money on this? Is that why you're so excited?"

"Look out for number 19 of the away team! That's the one with the green jerseys. The Martians." He grins.

"You must be kidding me! The Martians? In the green jerseys?" How many bad jokes about little green men have they been listening to throughout their time with the FBI?

"Funny, isn't it?"

"Not really."

Mulder cranes his neck and his eyes scan the bustle on the court. "I don't see number 19. Do you?"

"Is that your lucky number, or what?"

"Not only mine, yours too!" he says and winks at her.

The announcer starts introducing the players - _Number 14, Brian Lerner. Number 15, Josh Sanderson._ \- and one boy in a green jersey after another raises his hand and waves to the crowd.

"My lucky number is 5, Mulder, not 19!"

"Believe me, today it's 19. It's our lucky number today."

"Our? Since when do couples have a lucky number? Let alone we're not even a couple anymore."

 _Number 17, Aaron Hunt._

"Nineteen, Scully!"

"Ugh, would you stop talking in riddles! You're driving me crazy!"

Scully doesn't get any reaction because Mulder's eyes, and obviously his ears also, are glued to the line-up of players on the court.

 _Number 18, Cameron Huff. Number 19-_

"Mulder!" Scully whines.

 _William Van De Kamp._ _Number 20.._.

The following names never make it to Scully's ears. The pieces of the puzzle are finally falling into place. That's why Mulder has dragged her out here, that's why he's been so mysterious about number 19, and that's why he was so excited all the way. William, their son, the boy she gave up for adoption before he even turned one, is playing basketball today, and they're in the crowd watching him.

Scully turns to Mulder and sees that he's ecstatic. He sits at the edge of his chair like a cat ready to jump. His cheeks are glowing and he grins the widest grin Scully has ever seen on him. Then he looks at her. His excitement is electrifying and she begins to realize that what's going to happen could be life-altering for both of them.

"How did you find him?" Her voice is a mere whisper.

"I'm a trained investigator, remember? There are still some people with the FBI who know me."

"Oh? And they didn't turn tail and flee when Spooky Mulder showed up?"

"Believe it or not, one or two owed me something. They helped me track him down. I found out that he was going to attend a basketball summer camp not too far away and that he would be playing this little tournament, so I decided to bring you here."

"Why now?" She is still breathless and her voice thin.

"What you said after your mother's funeral broke my heart, Scully. You know, when we were sitting on that log at the lake. You said that I would get answers to all my mysteries, but that you would never get answers to the questions that were important to you. Your questions about William. I want you to get some answers, Scully. Today you can get some answers. If you want to. We can't talk to him, I hope you're aware of that. It would expose him to the risk we've so desperately been trying to keep him out of. But we can see how he's doing, and what kind of person he's grown into."

Mulder grabs her hands. His are freezing and in his face Scully sees both joy and excitement, but also anxiousness and doubt. She feels the same mixture. What if this tears open more wounds than it's able to heal?

"What about you, Mulder? Can you handle this?"

"I don't know," he replies with a weak shrug, "but this might be a one-and-only chance to share a little something of his life, Scully. I don't want to regret one day that I let it pass because I was afraid."

"Me either."

"So we'll stay?" Mulder asks cautiously, squeezing Scully's hands.

She nods. "We'll stay." And as if to seal their mutual agreement, the referee blows the starting whistle.

For a while, both parents are simply watching their lost son in awe. How he runs about the court, how he catches the ball and tosses it to one of his teammates, how he aims at the basket. Even the way he sits on the substitute's bench amazes them. Mulder, a textbook example of a sports fan, who usually analyzes each game he watches, assesses the players' strengths and weaknesses trying to predict the outcome, is entranced. This is no usual game for him. As far as this game is concerned, he's only interested in one single player and his unblinking eyes follow him without interruption.

Scully is the first to find her voice again. "He's got your height."

"Uh, well, yes. He wouldn't be playing basketball if he got yours," Mulder says with a sneer. "You gave him your hair color, though."

"Obviously. Poor boy!"

"I don't think it bothers him much."

"What makes you think that?"

"Don't forget I used to be a profiler before I transferred to the X-Files. If he didn't like the color of his hair, he'd cut it short. But his is quite long and, to top it, curly. He's not going with the fashion like 90 percent of the boys in this gym here, so I take it he's confident about his hair and likes to go with his own style."

Scully likes the idea that her son has the confidence and self-esteem to do things his way, that he's not the type to follow the masses just to belong to a group. Neither Mulder nor she have ever been followers in their lives, they've always stood up for their beliefs and ideas. That's what made them work on the X-Files for so long. Then another detail about William's hair strikes her.

"My hair used to be like that when I was a kid. I hated it. My mother had to braid it every morning to tame my mop of curly hair. Luckily, the curls grew out with puberty."

"I bet you were a cute girl with red, curly pigtails." It sounds like a tease but Mulder's eyes reveal true devotion. They both stare at each other but then turn their heads to focus again on what's happening on the court.

William's team, the Martians, is in possession of the ball. It's a fast game with the ball moving from player to player quickly, William amongst them.

"Is he good, Mulder?" Scully asks, lacking a good understanding of the game despite her spending a whole high school year alongside a basketball court.

"Yes, he's good. Not a top scorer but he anticipates the other players well and tosses the ball to the right teammate at the perfect time. And he's not bad from the three-point line." Mulder is in sports mode now and can't hide his pride. The boy has not only inherited his height but also his athletic ability. Mulder isn't such a bad basketball player himself.

"I think that's his girlfriend over there." Scully points to a girl with a ponytail sitting at the other side of the court.

"How do you know?"

"She claps her hands every time Will has the ball and jumps up and down like crazy when he scores a basket. Plus, she's wearing a shirt with the number 19 on the front. And the couple three rows behind her must be his parents. The man shouts 'Go, William!' all the time and the woman bites her nails whenever Will is on the court. They're all sitting among the people with the green jerseys."

"Good job, Agent Scully! Just like old times."

They smile at each other, and Scully begins to enjoy herself. But then she can't stop a wave of jealousy rolling over her when she looks at her son's adoptive parents again. It should be Mulder and her cheering him on, sharing his enthusiasm about basketball and supporting his talent. Her emotions drag her down into the depths of a dream world, one where she looks through the kitchen window to watch Mulder and William shoot hoops while she prepares dinner, where they ride their bikes to the park for a Sunday family picnic, where they sit at the breakfast table chatting and laughing and planning the day ahead. A world where they are a family of three.

So many different, contradictory emotions and impressions act upon Scully. She's exposing her blind side, she realizes, allowing this special moment to both delight and depress her. The curiosity, the burning desire of a mother to know about her child's well-being, finds itself in a ruthless battle with her soul's natural safeguard mechanism. The former leading her to suck in every detail of what she sees: William's looks, William's voice, William's movements. The latter warning her constantly not to plunge too deep into a state of exhilaration. It was hard enough, devastating almost, to break away from her son all those years ago, if she let him come too close now, she'd have to do it once more, and this time it might kill her. This dichotomy of joy and fear is threatening to tear her apart. Her body reacts accordingly, sending cold shivers down her spine one moment and burning up her cheeks the very next.

After a while, which could have been eternity or only a split-second, Mulder urgently pulls her out of her reverie by touching her lower arm. "We're halfway through the last quarter, Scully. It's gonna be over soon." His voice is hoarse and he sounds bitter.

She looks at him, at her son's father. She wanted him to be the father to her child; it was Mulder or no one. At first, she didn't know how to ask him to donate his genes for the IVF procedure, but when he said yes, she was so grateful. She would've never done it with an anonymous donor. There had already been too many unknown forces at work with her body and her health, she needed certainty that she was in control of what was done to her body. Having Mulder with her in this gave her certainty and security, only that it wasn't meant to be. Or so she thought at the time.

He's touched emotionally by what's happening today just like she is. Whoever says that mothers have a closer bond to their children and that fathers are cooler and more distant, is wrong. Scully has always felt sorry for Mulder as he had considerably less time to spend together with their baby than she had. He had to leave them too early after William was born, and his son was gone when he returned. He would've been a wonderful father if he had only been given the chance. When Scully dreams about what their family life could have been, she sees Mulder getting William his first baseball glove or patching a flat bicycle tire with him. She hears him reading bedtime stories about aliens and introducing him to the world of dating girls. She feels how much he loves him.

The referee blows the whistle again. This time, it's the final whistle.

Scully's pulse accelerates. Why did it have to be over so soon? She rants and raves at herself for having cared about what his girlfriend looks like or who his parents are instead of keeping her eyes on him and only him. On William, her beloved son. Why, for heaven's sake, didn't she take any pictures? Her smartphone is in her pocket! God, she could've even taken a video! Some memories to take home. All she has are a few baby pictures of William, yellowed and worn from looking at them ever so often. She hears Mulder murmur, "That's it. Game over."

Scully doesn't even know whether William's team won, and she bets neither does Mulder. She looks at him. He's a picture of misery. It hurts her physically to see that tall, strong, reckless man so desperate and close to tears, and it only adds to her own unsettling mixture of emotions. She shoves her own sensitivities aside, the pictures she omitted to take and the moments she didn't observe William. She rivets on Mulder because all she cares about right now is the way he's hurting, the way he's been hurting for years. "You okay, Mulder?" she asks, although it's pretty obvious he isn't.

"No, I'm not okay." He props his elbows up on his thighs and buries his face in his hands. "Why are they allowed to live our life, Scully? He's our son."

"Yes, he is ours. And he's gorgeous."

"He is, isn't he? We made him, Scully. You and me. We might not have saved the world, but we created life. And who knows, maybe one day he'll invent a cure for cancer or lead the world to peace."

They eventually made him the old-fashioned way, not caring for protection as both had been cleared as HIV negative and were in the strong belief that Scully was barren. The IVF treatment hadn't worked, so neither of them dared to believe that their lovemaking would have any other consequences than to strengthen their bond and uplift their relationship. Her pregnancy had been nothing else but a miracle.

"Or he simply enriches a few people's lives just by being there."

"Not our lives, Scully. Not ours." She has never heard him sound so bitter and disillusioned.

"He has enriched our lives, hasn't he? I cherish my time with him, even if it was much too short," she whispers, trying hard not to break out into tears.

"So do I, Scully. When he was born and I held him for the first time, it...uhm...it was the happiest moment of my life." It was not only his son in his arms that made this moment so special for Mulder but also Scully who was so beautifully beaming with motherly pride. "I mean, you and me and him...it was perfection. What else could I do but kiss you? I lacked the words to describe what I felt, I had to show you."

Now Scully's eyes are filling with tears. She wants to say something, tell Mulder that it was the happiest moment of her life also, only that she didn't know at the time. At the time, she believed it would be the beginning of a wonderful life for the three of them. That this split-second, this tiny fraction of a lifetime, would be everything they got, that after all they'd been through fate begrudged them only a fleeting moment of happiness, would've never seemed possible to her. They had suffered, had put their lives on the line, had given up so much, they deserved more than that. But life has turned out to be a bitch.

"I shouldn't have left you." Mulder interrupts Scully's reckoning with the unkindness of destiny. "My place was at your side, yours and William's, and no place else."

"No way, Mulder, they would've killed you! You had to disappear. I knew why I made you go, believe me!"

"You wanted to get rid of me, huh?"

"Don't be ridiculous! Together we might have been able to protect him."

"Scully, do you really believe I would've left if I hadn't been profoundly convinced that you could protect him on your own? I mean, I knew he was in the best hands I could ever imagine." When he catches her puzzled look he laughs. "What? I always felt safest when you were right behind me covering my back, and when I got caught, I knew you would rescue me. If you couldn't keep him safe, nobody could. And that includes me."

"You never said that before," she stammers.

He's practically given her absolution for having given William up for adoption. Not that he's ever blamed her, not with one word, but he's also never spoken it out so clearly. They've hardly ever spoken about it to begin with. Both of them coped with the loss, and the grief, and the sadness on their own; and in completely different ways. She buried herself in work, numbing the pain with distraction. He let himself sink deeper and deeper into a depression, numbing the pain with pills and scotch.

"I thought you knew I trusted you blindly. With my life, and with his." Mulder makes eye contact by cupping Scully's face with both hands. "We challenged the wrong people, Scully. They were, and still are, too powerful for us. For them, we're only pawns on a chess board that they can move around and sacrifice to their liking; and William had the value of the queen. It was right to take our child out of the game. If it only wasn't so damn hard to live with the knowledge that he's out there being the beloved son to another couple."

Scully winces at the idea that there are people out there having no scruples to think of human beings as tokens, classifying them into pawns and queens and kings. She experienced it first-hand, though, when they let her fall sick with cancer and cured her at their convenience. Protecting her son from becoming a pawn in the hands of the powerful had been the single and only reason for her to make the most difficult decision of her life.

"He's doing well, Mulder. He's healthy, and he's happy. That's what I needed to know."

They're the only people in the gym by now. The players, the coaches, and the fans have all left.

"His parents seem to be nice people," Scully continues.

"Hmmm."

Eventually, Scully rises from her chair. "Come on, Mulder, let's go." He promised her a cozy dinner and she wants him to keep his promise. Staying in this place any longer isn't good for them. She holds her hand out to Mulder, he takes it and allows her to pull him up.

"I'm not sure whether coming here was really such a good idea," he says. "It hurts, Scully."

"I know. I'm hurting too, but it's also healing to know that our sacrifice wasn't for naught. He has a normal life and people who care for him, that's all I ever wanted for him to have."

"We would've cared for him, too."

"Of course, we would, but we weren't able to give him a normal life. Would you have wanted to drag an infant through the country, changing his ID almost on a monthly basis, tearing him out of school and away from his friends? We had no right to do this to him."

Holding hands they're crossing the court where William had been playing only a short time earlier. They are ready to leave the place of their brief, one-sided encounter with their lost son, when suddenly a basketball hopscotches towards them, coming to a halt right beneath Scully's feet.

"Hey, where did that come from?" She picks the ball up and lets it bounce clumsily. "Do you think you can teach a gawky girl how to play, Mulder?" she asks, her eyes focused on the ball. When she doesn't get an answer, she looks up and into a shocked face. "Oh, come on! You didn't mind showing me how to hit a baseball! What if I let you put your hand on my hip again?" she adds with a smug grin and a wink.

There's still no reaction from Mulder whatsoever. His face remains as if chiseled in stone, his eyes wide and his mouth open.

"Breathe, Mulder! What's the matter with you? If I didn't know better, I'd think you're trying to diss me."

Eventually, someone speaks to her, but it's not Mulder. "Excuse me, Ma'am. Can I have my ball back?"

Scully spins around and looks into the innocent face of...her son.

"What the-" Fortunately, she keeps the last world from leaving her mouth, otherwise a curse would've been the first thing William heard from his mother after more than 14 years of silence.

"I'm sorry if it hit you, Ma'am," the boy apologizes politely. He has been taught some manners obviously. "It somehow slipped out of my hand."

Scully grins stupidly. "Uh, never mind."

Mother and son silently gaze at each other, studying the other's face. The boy inherited not only his mother's hair color but also the color of her eyes. They are of the same clear, ice-blue brightness as Scully's.

William frowns. "Have we met before?"

Scully feels the earth move under her feet. How is she supposed to answer that question? If she could do what she feels like, she'd embrace him, tight, and whisper into his ear, 'I'm your mother, Sweetheart! I conceived you, carried you in my womb, gave birth to you, nursed you, sang you to sleep, cuddled you, loved you. Love you!' But of course, she won't say any of these words. She can't possibly lie to him either, though. "I guess you're mistaking me for someone else."

"I don't think so." William tilts his head and arches one eyebrow, a gesture so Scully-esque Mulder chokes.

William turns, unbeknownst to him, to his father. "Everything alright, Sir?"

"Yes, yes." Mulder clears his throat. "Good game, Pal!"

"Thank you, Sir."

"Your technique from the three-point line is good. I like it how you give the ball that final spin." He tries to sound matter-of-fact, and most people would believe he's cool and relaxed. William probably does, but Scully senses how tensed up Mulder really is.

"That's very kind of you, Sir." William scrutinizes the man he's at eye level with from head to toe. The boy will probably outgrow his father one day, for he's not yet 15 and almost of the same height.

Scully stares at the two. William has the same tall, lanky figure as his father: broad shoulders, flat stomach, narrow hips, and long arms. His juvenile body exudes vigor and zest with every fiber. That a boy so impressive and hunky had once been carried inside a body as petite and delicate as Scully's is hard to believe.

"Will, we should get going." The girl Scully identified as their son's girlfriend grabs his arm. She appears a bit anxious, probably marveling at the weird conversation her boyfriend is having with those two unknown adults.

"Just a sec, Amy."

William turns his head towards Scully, but his eyes still rest on Mulder. Then he shakes his head and gives Scully the same paralyzing stare as before. "I'm pretty sure I know you, Ma'am!" he insists.

"Probably a doppelganger. Or deja vu. A doppelganger is a person who resembles someone else with no biological relation, and deja vu is the feeling you get when you're in a situation, and feel like you've been in the exact same situation before, but really haven't. It could be either phenomenon or a combination of the two."

If William knew his mother, he'd be able to classify this move as typical for her. Being able to name a scientific explanation for an otherwise crazy situation has always given her relief.

The boy scratches his head. "If you say so."

"William, the others are waiting for us," Amy tries again, now rather impatient than apprehensive.

"Anyways, it was nice meeting you." William nods to Scully then turns to Mulder. "Sir."

"Nice meeting you, too," they answer in unison and look after him as he grabs his girlfriend's hand and walks toward the exit.

From afar, Mulder and Scully can hear Amy hiss, "For heaven's sake, Will, what was that? Who were those people?"

"I have no idea, Amy. This woman...her eyes," he trails off.

"What's with her eyes?"

"They were...so...familiar."

And then the heavy door to the gym slams shut and the kids are gone. Mulder and Scully are alone. Both are rooted to the spot, overwhelmed by what has just happened.

"He remembers you, Scully."

"Impossible, Mulder."

"Listen to what I'm saying, he remembers you. The way he looked at you. It was written all over his face."

"Childhood memories don't go back that far. Usually, people don't remember what happened in their childhood up to the age of three or four, and he wasn't even a year old. Scientists believe that with age the growth of new brain cells overwrites existing ones, erasing early childhood memories."

"He's no usual kid, Scully. He's smart, and he's sensitive. You can quote from your medical textbooks as much as you like, but I assure you he didn't buy anything you said about doppelgangers and deja vu. He knew...he felt...there's a connection between the two of you."

"I want to believe you, Mulder, I really do. It's just so damn hard."

Mulder makes a step toward her and engages her in a hug. "Let the mother in you have the upper hand over the scientist," he breathes in her ear, then kisses her cheek. She lets him put his arms around her and rests her head on his shoulder.

"Thank you, Mulder! Thank you for this day!"

"It turned out slightly different than I thought, to be honest. What a surprising twist!"

They stand in a tight embrace and enjoy the closeness. They're in this together, and it makes it easier for them. They're so focused on each other that they're taken aback when someone is coughing right behind them.

"Excuse us, we're the Van De Kamps. We need to ask you something."

Mulder and Scully jump apart, but Scully doesn't turn around. She decides to nestle closely against Mulder's chest, trying to take shelter where she's already found it so many times. 'Go away,' she begs silently with her eyes closed. 'Please, go away and leave us alone.'

Her pleas remain unheard. Without waiting for an answer, Mr. Van De Kamp continues, "Are you our son's biological parents?"

Scully gasps and Mulder's facial features freeze.

"I beg your pardon? " Mulder's voice is thick. He understood the question quite well but doesn't know what else to say.

"Are you our adoptive son's biological parents?" the man repeats stubbornly.

"They want him back, Walt! I told you one day they'll come and want him back," the woman at his side, supposedly Mrs. Van De Kamp, cries out in tears.

Mulder gathers the strength to ask, "What makes you think we're your son's parents?"

"We saw you talk to William."

Now, Scully turns around. Mr. Van De Kamp's eyes flicker. "Plus, the resemblance is striking." He points to both Mulder and Scully. "I mean, William looks like the perfect combination of the both of you."

"You want to have him back, don't you?" the woman says again, and the anxiety in her voice touches Scully deeply.

"No, Mrs. Van De Kamp, we don't wan-" Scully bites her lip when she realizes what she was about to utter, "we can't have him back."

"But you're admitting it! You are his birth mother, aren't you?"

Scully nods, looking down to the floor to avoid meeting Mrs. Van De Kamp's eyes. To her complete surprise, Mr. Van De Kamp is exhilarated.

"Oh, that's wonderful! We have so many questions! William has questions! We would've preferred an open adoption from the start. We think it's important for an adopted child to know their roots. William asked us about his origin many, many times, but there was nothing in the papers we could tell him."

"For a reason, Mr. Van De Kamp. And because of the very same reason we still can't tell you anything, sorry." Scully sounds more resolute than she wants to and instantly regrets her harsh tone when she looks into the puzzled faces of the Van De Kamps.

Mulder pulls her aside and whispers to her. "What about your little mysteries, Scully? You could get some of the answers you've been looking for so desperately."

"But Mulder-"

"I know what you're thinking. It won't put him in danger if we talk to these two people. Nobody knows we're here, nobody has followed us. I took precautions. Haven't forgotten too much from my time as FBI agent." He looks at her forcefully. "As long as we don't talk to him."

"But we did talk to him!" Scully shrieks.

"That was an unforeseeable coincidence we can't undo anymore. I meant that we can't sit down with him and tell him the story of our lives. But we can talk to his parents. Just this once."

"And what do you want to tell them, huh, Mulder? Everything?"

"No, of course not everything! But something! Something about the circumstances of William's adoption. Don't you think the boy deserves it?" As Scully is struggling with herself, Mulder tries to give her the final push. "Come on, let's just do it!"

The reassuring look on Mulder's face eventually tips the scales for Scully. Unable to make a decision herself she decides to trust him. It has always been like this. Whenever he said, 'Scully, we have to go, this definitely is an X-File,' she followed him. Whenever he said, 'Scully, believe me, this man has supernatural powers,' she believed him. Whenever he said, 'Scully, trust me, it'll be fine,' she trusted him. So when he says William will be safe, William will be safe.

"I saw a little Italian café a few blocks down the road," Mr. Van De Kamp proposes from where he's standing a few feet away, overhearing their little argument. "We'd have a bit more privacy there than here in this gym. And I could also use a strong coffee. What about you?"


	2. Chapter 2

Fifteen minutes later, they're sitting at a square table in Guglielmo's, the café Walter mentioned earlier. Mulder and Scully are next to each other facing the Van De Kamps, four cups of steaming Italian coffee in front of them. It smells delicious, but none of the four people present seem to care or even notice.

"Mr. and Mrs. Van De Kamp," Mulder starts.

"Please, call us Walter and Helen," Mrs. Van De Kamp says and bites a huge piece off an Italian almond cake called Torta di Mandorle. She's a little embarrassed and shrugs. "I'm always hungry when I'm nervous."

Scully manages a weak smile. She, for her part, feels like throwing up any minute. A situation she has always feared is unfolding itself with her being the main protagonist right in the middle of it.

She was the one who made the decision to give William away.  
She was the one who signed the adoption papers.  
She was the one who deprived Mulder of his son.  
And she was the one who turned the couple sitting in front of her into parents.

Scully feels Helen's eyes on her from the moment they met in the high school gym, and she believes she knows what kind of question there is on the tip of the woman's tongue ready to jump out any second, probably ever since the adoption agency handed over William. Scully has been asked that question many times by all kinds of people. It has cut deep into her heart every single time. Even her mother hadn't spared her, neither had Reyes or Doggett. And of course her brother Bill and his wife Tara had asked her, who themselves were parents of two lovely children.

Only Mulder hasn't. The person with the most right to know has never asked her why. Perhaps his profiler mind knew the answer and therefore never questioned her motives. With him, Scully has never felt obliged to justify her decision, and for that alone she loves him.

"My name is Fox Mulder and this is Dana Scully," Mulder introduces them like he did so many times back in the days of their early partnership as Special Agents of the FBI.

"Oh, that's where William got his middle name from!" Helen shrieks. "We asked ourselves why he was given such an extraordinary name."

Mulder stares at Scully. "You named him Fox? Were you out of your mind?"

The Van De Kamps exchange a puzzled look.

"I wanted him to have something from his father. You didn't leave me a golden watch for him before you left, so what else could I give him but your name?"

"But that quirky name? Honestly, how could you do that to him, Scully?"

"Actually," Walter says, "William likes it. He never writes down his middle initial, always the complete name. He thinks it's quite unique."

"Unique? Yep, that it is," Mulder mumbles with the coffee cup on his lips.

Walter throws his wife a questioning glance. They appear to be wondering why these people are so peculiar with their names. They must have noticed that Mulder and Scully call each other by their last names, and the way Mulder got worked up over Scully naming William after him certainly added to their astonishment.

An awkward silence occurs. Helen puts another piece of almond cake into her mouth, she's obviously very tensed up. She flushes it down with a sip of coffee, then she takes a deep breath and breaks the silence. "Dana, may I ask you something?"

Scully prepares herself for the inevitable question and stiffens. Her hands clutch the coffee cup in front of her. It's still heated up from its steaming content. Her palms are burning, but this is nothing compared to the pain she's preparing herself for.

"How are you, Dana?"

Scully looks up, frowning and staring speechlessly at Helen. That question was unexpected.

"I'd like to know what you feel, Dana. You seem so composed and aloof, but I can imagine this must be very hard for you." The woman reaches out for Scully's hands, disentangling them from the cup and gently taking them in hers.

Scully stares at Helen's hands. They're strong and weather-beaten, marked by years of manual labor at a farm, but they spread warmth and true compassion.

Why isn't Helen asking her how she could ever give her son away? How she could live with the guilt? Why isn't she reproaching her and charging her with lacking enough motherly love? To that Scully would've known what to reply. Over the years, she has acquired a host of answers for this purpose. She's able to always pick the right one to satisfy the enquirer without displaying her inner self. That she's now being asked about her personal well-being instead catches her completely off guard.

"Uh, I'm fine." Also one of her stock responses, one which makes Mulder moan.

"Don't believe her," he says. Turning to Scully and placing his hand on her upper arm, he continues. "This is not going to work if we're not open and honest. Why don't I start?" He looks around and gets a nod from Helen and Walter. "Scully?"

Scully stares at Mulder, tears forming in her eyes. She's unable to utter a single word. Eventually she closes her eyes and nods.

"Alright." Mulder sits up straight. He coughs, takes Scully's hand, which has been unleashed by Helen in the meantime, in both of his and starts to talk.

He tells Walter and Helen about how they worked together for the FBI. That they were thrown together as partners without being asked but grew into a well-functioning team shortly thereafter. He explains why it took them such a long time until they acknowledged their feelings for each other, and tells them a bit of what their work consisted of, how they travelled around the country to solve the most complicated cases and how they defied powerful institutions along the road. He does not mention anything about the X-Files, governmental conspiracies, alien abduction or extraterrestrial colonization. He also keeps their frequent hospital bedside visits, Scully's cancer as well as the list of family members they both have lost to himself.

When Helen and Walter hear about how dangerous and all-mighty their opponents were, that Scully's pregnancy was threatened all the way and that she had to give birth in a secret hideout without the help of a doctor or even a trained midwife, they stare at them with wide eyes. Helen puts one hand in front of her mouth to keep a gasp from slipping out. She's especially compassionate with Scully and looks at her with warm eyes.

"You were alone when William was born?"

"No, I was not alone." During Mulder's narration, Scully has been able to calm herself. Her voice is back, so is her composure. "A female agent was with me. She protected me and helped me deliver William. She took care of us until Mulder arrived to get us to a hospital."

"You weren't there when your son was born, Fox?" Helen's eyes are full of sympathy when she looks at Mulder.

Mulder swallows hard and only shakes his head, clenching his teeth. Helen doesn't know how hard she hit his sore spot. The guilt of having left Scully alone giving birth has been burning within his heart up to this very day. There are so many things he feels guilty for when it comes to what Scully had to go through ever since she made his aquaintance, but he will never forgive himself that he wasn't at her side when their baby was born. It should have been him supporting and protecting her, not Agent Reyes. That he deprived himself of the exceptional experience to witness his son come to life, sharing the life-altering moment with the woman he loved, is something he still can't come to terms with.

"Not exactly a family-friendly environment you were in," Walter says. "We were wondering what could possibly make parents give their child up for adoption. We were afraid that the reason might be a serious illness or a birth defect, but then we were told that William had been given up by a single mother. We thought of an abandoned woman, of course. Someone who was unable to provide for the child alone. Circumstances like you just mentioned, Fox, didn't even remotely come to our mind. I can hardly believe what I just heard. It's unimaginable!"

"Scully," Mulder looks at Scully, inviting her to tell her part of the story now.

Scully takes a long, deep breath and exhales very slowly. Mulder asked her to be open and honest, but exposing her inner world isn't easy for her. She feels her heart banging against her ribcage and a lump forming in her throat. On the one hand, she wants to make these people understand the predicament she found herself in, on the other, she dreads going back to the worst time of her life.

"I wanted this child so badly," she starts, whispering more to herself than to the Van De Kamps. "I was told I couldn't have any children, so when I became pregnant, I was overwhelmed. Surprised, unable to believe it at first, but also overjoyed. I didn't know Mulder's wherebouts at the time, he was working underground and didn't know that he was going to be a father. When he finally returned, I was seven months along."

It doesn't make any sense to mention that Mulder was believed to be dead, that she stood at his grave mourning for him with her hands on her developing baby bump. They also don't need to know how much he hurt her when he had problems coping with her pregnancy after his recovery. She isn't even sure whether he knows. It wasn't until Mulder touched her belly in the hospital after her partial placental abruption that she felt reconnected to him. She needed Mulder for emotional support, so when she felt his hand on her belly and the baby kicking inside, it gave her back her confidence that everything would be fine.

"For heaven's sake, Dana, that's horrible! What happened to you guys that you were apart so often? A pregnancy is supposed to be something for a couple to enjoy together. I'm so sorry." Helen squeezes Scully's hand again.

"Yeah, well, it wasn't meant to be for us."

"But then, eventually, you were together, right? After William was born? It's said to be the most precious time for young parents with their baby. That's something we always missed having." Helen strokes her husband's hand. From her face Scully can read that they've been suffering as well.

"We had a few happy weeks together, yes." Different images are popping up randomly in Scully's head: William latched on her breast, William nestled against Mulder's chest, William in his crib showing them a toothless smile. Like millions of other couples, they were enjoying those first few weeks bonding as a family. Their kiss with William in the middle felt like a promise to stay together forever.

"What do you mean 'a few weeks'? Only a few weeks? William was almost one when he came to us!"

Poor people, Scully thinks. They must believe they're listening to some fictional crime story. How can she make them relate to the situation they found themselves in? Probably not at all. For outsiders, it's impossible to understand what their life was like since they had been working on the X-Files. All she wants them to understand are her motives for having given William up for adoption. Not so much for her own sake, but for William's. He has to know he wasn't gotten rid of like trash but given away in his own interest. Only in his own interest.

"Mulder had to leave again and this time we didn't know whether it would be for good, whether he would ever be able to come back. His life was at stake."

"Because of the same people who threatened you while you were pregnant?" Walter asks.

"They were still after us. And after William. They needed him."

"Oh my God," Helen moans. She stares into the void, putting the last piece of almond cake into her mouth.

"What would they need an innocent child for?" Walter keeps asking.

Scully throws Mulder a questioning look. He takes over again, weighing his words cautiously. The Van De Kamps wouldn't understand a word he was saying and probably think he was crazy if he told them anything about William being a pivotal figure in the yearslong combat between the highest governmental institutions and ruthless alien colonists. He needs to keep the story simple and digestable for people who are completely in the dark about what the government is capable of concealing from its citizens.

"They knew they could keep us at check if they threatened William. He was their leverage over us. As long as we were busy protecting him, we weren't able to fight against them. And, of course, they knew that as soon as they got hold of him, we'd do anything they wanted to rescue him."

That's all Mulder tells them. Nothing about William's supernatural powers Scully reported after they'd reunited, and most certainly nothing about the number of times his life had already been in peril during his short life.

The Van De Kamps are attentive, unprejudiced listeners. They seem to understand. "So giving him up for adoption was like some kind of witness protection program for him then," Helen says.

"You can call it that, yes. I had managed to protect him, had saved him from a few hairy situations." 'Hairy' is, of course, the understatement of the year, but Scully is afraid William's adoptive parents would freak out if they understood the high risk their baby boy had faced before he came to them. "But the thought that one short moment of distraction, a second of weakness or delayed reaction would suffice for them to get him, wouldn't let me sleep anymore."

Scully remembers the countless nights she spent at William's crib simply watching him, wishing Mulder was there to help look after him. Reyes and Doggett had offered to help, and even AD Skinner had volunteered to babysit, but nobody knew their enemies better than Mulder and herself. And that had put her on a 24/7 service to protect William. At a certain point, the fact that she and she alone was responsible for her son's safety and welfare, led her to break down and curse Mulder for not being at her side. It was a short moment of weakness she recovered from quickly.

What scared her more, though, was the question of what all this would do to the child. Being pulled out of the crib and driven somewhere in the middle of the night because of a sudden threat, lacking a daily routine with regular sleeping and nursing times, plus having a mother around who was constantly anxious and unsettled, couldn't be good for a baby. More than once, Scully was amazed that William still smiled at her when she took him out of his little bed. When he was beaming at her during feeding time or squeaking with pleasure when she cuddled him, she felt his unconditional trust in her. The boy showed her such a high level of confidence, it sometimes took her breath away. She held his life in her hands, he was completely dependent on her.

"There was a day I realized I had no right to make William live like that. I wished for him to have a normal life, like every other baby in the world," Scully whispers.

"A normal life? What's that supposed to be?" Walter asks.

"Well, obviously not the one Mulder and I were living. We had made choices, and we were paying the price." Scully looks at Mulder, thinking back to the day they first met. She wasn't lying, she was looking forward to working with him. And when they were in that motel the first night of their escape, she wasn't lying either, she would have done it all over again. "If William had stayed with us, he would've been on the run from someone or something his whole life. But he was an innocent, helpless infant who hadn't asked to be born into a world like that. I wanted him to grow up carefree and fearless, I wanted him to live in a world full of sunshine and joy, not in one where he'd find darkness and threat. Since he couldn't decide what his life would be like, I knew I had to. And I did."

Scully's voice breaks at the end. Her motives sound so logical and comprehensible even to herself, but the moment she realized that she wouldn't keep William struck her like lightning and divided her life into two parts. Before, there had been darkness and pain, fear and threat, but also hope. Hope for a different life, a life without monsters. After that, there was only despair.

Scully feels Mulder's arm around her trembling shoulders. She lets him pulls her toward him and kiss her hair, a gesture which has soothed her a thousand times. Until now, she has been able to cope with the flashbacks. It was as if she narrated just some story rather than her own life. But now that she's reached the point where she said goodbye to her son, she feels weak and defenseless. If she doesn't want to fall apart in front of these people, she has to stop this. Instantly.

"You had to make that decision alone, Dana? Without Fox's support?" Once again Helen proves to be a very sensitive woman. She's not judging, only empathizing. "That's awful!"

Scully takes another deep breath and swallows down her pain. So much for stopping this right now. She remembers exactly how forsaken and desperate she felt. The man she loved was lost and the baby she had wanted and fought for so fiercely was going to be lost too. She had never felt more alone in her life, and never again thereafter. William left an emptiness behind that has never been filled. Had they not found Mulder and had they not reunited, there wouldn't have been anything or anyone able to console her. Without Mulder, her life wouldn't have been worth living anymore.

Running away with him had never been disputed. She would've followed him to the end of the world, if need be. They had each other, that was the only thing that made the loss bearable. There had been days she was happy, days when being on the run was even fun. They were totally dependent on each other, needing the other like they needed the air to breathe. For the first time ever, they were able to live up to their feelings for another, and there was a lot to catch up on.

When Mulder was finally pardoned and rehabilitated, Scully was looking forward to leading a normal life. A man and a woman living in a house, both pursuing their professions, having breakfast and dinner together, making love at night. Unfortunately, it was like this only for a short time. Mulder retreated into his office, one almost as dark and secluded as the one at the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. He started to write a book he never finished, pretended to be occupied with research, but instead he let himself go and fall into a state of desperation and self-pity even Scully couldn't rescue him from. The curious, dedicated and impressive man she had fallen in love with had turned into a moody and introverted shadow of his former self.

One day, Scully didn't have any power left to witness his decline. All she had the power to do was pack her bag and leave. Although they can't live together as a couple anymore, or maybe just not now, they still love and care for each other. A life without Mulder is unimaginable for Scully, and she knows for him it's just the same.

"Maybe you can understand now why we came to see William today," Mulder comes back to what their get together in an Italian café called Guglielmo's is all about. "All these years, we've been wondering how he was doing, whether it was the right thing to let him go. All we wanted was to have a look at him. Talking to him, or to you, was never in the plan."

"Are you alright with what you saw?" Walter wants to know.

"Yes, we are," Scully answers for the both of them. "We could see that he's thriving. He's got everything I wished for him to have, a happy life and good parents. Parents that love him."

"Oh, we do love him!" Helen assures vigorously. "He's been the apple of our eyes from the day he came to us. I guess now it's our turn to tell you something. Walter?"

Walter kneads his fingers. A few drops of sweat appear on his forehead and he wipes them away with his sleeve. "Helen and I tried to have a baby for a long time. We even tried IVF, but it didn't work." He throws his wife a tender look. "There we were, in this big house with lots of rooms, a dog and a few cats, a huge garden with plenty of space to play around, the perfect tree for a treehouse, and it was only the two of us. One day, we decided to apply for an adoption, but it was a very bureaucratic and long process. Dana, you decided from one day to the other to give William up, we waited more than three years for him. It was a difficult time." Overwhelmed by his emotions, his voice breaks.

Helen takes over. "Because of our age they told us we weren't very likely to get a baby, rather a four or five-year-old. We were thrilled when the adoption agency called us one day and said we could have a ten month old boy in two days time. We couldn't believe it at first, but then we got in the car, drove into the village and bought the essentials. Diapers, formula, some clothes."

"I fetched Helen's old baby bed from the barn, the one she slept in when she was a baby. I remember William's first night with us as if it was yesterday." Walter takes a sip of coffee. "I put a crib mobile up for him. He looked at it, smiled, and went to sleep. He was so good."

Thank God they didn't see him spin that mobile with the power of his mind, Scully thinks.

Then the Van De Kamps tell Mulder and Scully everything about William's childhood. How he grew up in the rural area they are still living in today. Who he played with, what his favorite waste of time was, what TV shows he liked, and his favorite dish. They tell them that he broke his arm once at the age of six, that he had the chickenpox, and that his childhood sweetheart was named Sandra.

"He's doing well in school," Helen proudly reports. "He's interested in science and wants to become a medical doctor."

Scully inhales sharply through her nose. "Scully is a medical doctor," Mulder explains her reaction.

"And he's a good athlete. Maybe that's what he got from you, Fox, not only your height. You seem to be in good shape," Walter says with a smile and pats his own rounded tummy. "You saw him play basketball today, but he's also a very talented baseball player."

"What's his favorite team?" Mulder asks.

"San Francisco Giants." Mulder closes his eyes and a tormented 'argh' escapes his throat. "Not your favorite team?"

"No, not exactly."

Scully tries to suppress a smile but fails. "Come on, Mulder, it could be worse."

"Sure, he could be a fan of the Red Sox!" As every other Yankees fan, Mulder loathes the Red Sox.

"The Giants are very popular where we live, so don't blame him." Walter tries to calm the waves. "He likes the Yankees, does that help?"

Mulder pouts. "A little."

Scully is grateful for the mood to have lightened up a bit with that short banter about baseball enthusiasm, but she can't pull her mind away from the things that are more important to her than what sports teams William likes.

"Did he-" She falls silent before completing the sentence.

The ultimate question, a burning-a-hole-into-her-heart kind of question, isn't willing to leave her mouth. It's a demasking question, one which leaves the asker vulnerable. The answer could be either uplifting or devastating; in any way, surging strong emotions.

"Did he-" She can't say it.

Helen obviously senses Scully's predicament and she's kind enough to help her out of it. "Did he ever ask about his birth mother? Is that what you want to know, Dana?" Her voice is smooth as silk and so full of sympathy that the tears instantly jump out of Scully's eyes and run down her cheeks. She nods.

"Oh, Honey, of course, he did!"

Scully is hanging on Helen's every word now. It's like opening Pandora's box. She's not sure whether what she's about to hear will give her final peace or make her feel guiltier than ever. She's grateful for Mulder's arm around her shoulder.

"We told him that he was an adopted child from early on. Not that it wasn't obvious enough he wasn't our biological child. I mean look at us, no resemblance at all. He had just turned three when a friend of his was going to get a sibling, and he asked whether my tummy had been as big as the one of his friend's mother. I told him that he hadn't been in my tummy but in another woman's. At the time, he didn't need any more information, he was only three, but it was important to us to never lie to him about his descent. A few years later, he was five or six, we watched a children's movie with an adopted child in it. Not on purpose, it just happened. He asked why the woman with the tummy he had been in didn't keep him, whether there was something wrong with him."

Scully winces at being called 'the woman with the tummy he had been in'. She's always felt like a mother, his mother, although he has never called her 'mommy' or 'mom'. She had two children, Emily and William, and neither has ever addressed her as 'mom'. Only in her dreams.

Helen continues. "I told him that absolutely nothing was wrong with him, but that there are sometimes situations where mothers can't care for their babies, and that if they love their babies enough they give them to someone else to care for them. I said I didn't know exactly what his birth mother's reasons had been but that I was convinced she gave him away because she didn't have any other choice."

Mulder inhales deeply. Although this is mainly about Scully, he's hit by what he's hearing. Especially the idea that William thought he might have been unwanted is as painful for him as it is for her.

"The older he got, the more often he asked if we knew anything of his biological parents, but there was nothing in the papers and the adoption agency told us all information was strictly confidential."

"Only to protect William," Mulder explains. What he doesn't explain is that the adoption being closed also served as a safety mechanism for themselves. Should they ever feel the urge to track William down, the agency wouldn't give them any information about the boy's whereabouts. It was naïve to believe, of course, that they would never use the FBI sources, if they really wanted to. And Mulder did really want to. He wanted to take that black veil off Scully's soul. Seeing her suffer from so much heartache when it comes to her son, because of not knowing anything about him, broke Mulder's last resistance to comply to their long-existing agreement to never try to contact him.

"Is he still at risk?" Helen's voice is trembling.

Scully instinctively touches her neck and feels the little scar under her fingertips where the chip that saved her life had been implanted. "We don't know," she breathes.

"He would love to meet you." Walter says. "He's been telling us for years he wants to meet his birth parents. It's become almost an obsession, I must say. He contacted the adoption agency, insisting on his right to know his biological roots. Unsuccessfully, of course." He presses his lips together.

"As much as we want him to," Scully takes a deep breath to calm her voice. She wants to be very clear about this, both to the Van De Kamps and to Mulder and herself, "he can't."

Scully reaches out for Mulder's hand. He grabs it eagerly, needing comfort just like she does. Of course, he knows what her fears are. What if the chip in Scully's neck didn't only cure her but has also been used as a monitoring device? What if it sends out Scully's GPS data? Their enemies most certainly have the technology to use the chip for means they can't even think of.

Scully's rigorous 'No!' at William's desire to meet them leaves the Van De Kamps speechless for a moment, but then Walter gets a bit worked up. "Don't you think the boy deserves it? You brought him into this world, and he has a right to know who you are! You're afraid he might accuse you, that's all!"

"Walter!" Helen shouts at him. "Shut up, you insensitive airhead! Can't you see how these two people are suffering? How they've been suffering ever since they gave William up? We've been benefitting from their hopeless situation! And what they're doing right now, that they are still backing away from him, has only to do with selflessness and love for the child and nothing with self-defense as you were implying. Shame on you!"

Walter stares at his wife. He knows her as a rather composed and even-tempered person, a blowup like this is very unusual.

"It's alright, Helen. I understand Walter's motives. He only wants the best for William," Scully comes to Walter's defense. But so do we, she'd like to add, but doesn't. She's not ready to unfold her medical history in front of the Van De Kamps.

"No, Dana, Helen is right. I apologize. I guess my emotions were getting the better of me. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Sorry, Fox."

"It's okay, Walter," Mulder replies. "I guess we're all a little edgy."

"I was just thinking what would be best for William."

"I know."

The two men nod at each other and the tension slowly subsides. Even Scully is able to take a sip of coffee now without fear of throwing it up right away. Of course, the coffee is cold by now and tastes terrible.

For a moment nobody says a word. Everything seems to have been said already. The quiet feels peaceful, all four of them lean back in their seats. Then the door to the little café flings open.

"Ah, here you are!" a familiar voice shouts through the room. "I've been looking for you! What are you guys doing here?"

The Van De Kamps as well as Mulder and Scully instantly recognize the voice and freeze.

Scully leans forward and begs in a whisper, "Don't tell him who we are, please!"

William approaches the table where they are sitting and looks at Walter and Helen. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to grab something to eat? I'm hungry as a wolf." With this he pulls out a chair from another table and joins them without asking. He lowers himself down and only now recognizes the two other people sitting together with his parents. "Oh, it's you again! What a coincidence!"

Was that a bit of irony in his voice? Scully can literally feel him thinking, trying to figure out what's been going on. Mulder tries to give him an explanation. "Your father read one of my articles and recognized me at the gym. We got into a conversation."

"Oh, really?"

Caught on quickly, Mulder, Scully thinks, but he doesn't believe a word you're saying. William seems to be the same skeptic as she.

"You want to eat something, Billy?" Helen asks her son.

"Sure. Pizza with mushrooms and pepperoni, and lots of cheese."

Walter orders the pizza and a Coke for William and another round of Italian coffee. When the pizza arrives, William savages it as if he hasn't eaten for days.

Helen notices Scully's stare at her son inhaling the food. "Puberty. Makes them eat as if they were miners." She smiles caringly at him and ruffles his hair.

"Mom!" William pushes her hand aside, being both embarrassed and annoyed. Scully is tickled by the situation and chuckles. Her eyes meet William's and there it is again: his intense stare at her she already felt at the gym. As if he looked right into her soul.

"Bill!" Walter reprimands his son, using a less belittleing nickname than his wife. With the many Williams in their families already called Bill, Mulder and Scully might have chosen to call him Will rather than Bill.

"Sorry, Mom, but I just washed my hair." Helen only smiles.

"This is Mr. Mulder and Dr. Scully, William. They came all the way from Virginia to watch today's game. Can you imagine?"

"Uh huh."

"I said doctor, Billy! Dana is a medical doctor!"

Being preoccupied with food, William hasn't been paying attention to the introduction. Now that his interest is piqued, he says, "wow, that's cool! Which field? Do you work at a hospital?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I am working as a surgeon at a hospital, but my original field is pathology."

"Eek! Isn't it a bit morbid to work on corpses all day? For me medicine is about healing people."

"Well, I'm a forensic pathologist with the FBI, and-"

"You're an FBI agent? That definitely is cool!"

Scully sees real admiration in her son's eyes. She enjoys having this little conversation with him.

"So is Mulder. We work together."

"Really? Are you also a pathologist, Mr. Mulder?"

"Oh, no! Scully is the scientist, I'm more the...uhm, theorizer," Mulder tries to describe their partnership.

William turns back to Scully. "What do you do as a forensic pathologist with the FBI?"

"I investigate the cause of death. Corpses give us a lot of information and they hold important hints we need to solve the cases and convict the murderers."

"Wow!" William is so impressed, he even forgets to eat. He holds a piece of pizza in his hand, but doesn't bring it to his mouth.

"Mulder develops the theories and I try to substantiate them with science."

"Or debunk them!" Mulder says with a grin that makes Scully smile also.

"What was the article you wrote and my father read about, Mr. Mulder?" William now turns to interrogate Mulder. Scully can't help thinking that they may have hatched the next generation of a fabulous FBI agent.

Mulder only needs a second to come up with something. "It was about the possibilty of extraterrestrial life forms on earth." Home turf.

"You're dealing with space and aliens and the paranormal?"

"Sort of."

"Awesome!"

There's no verbal communication necessary between the two of them for Scully to notice that Mulder is thrilled to have gotten this reaction from his son. In her mind's eye she sees them both looking through a telescope into the starry night, hoping to catch a space ship flying by, or watching a documentary about UFO's on tv.

"Do you really believe in aliens, F-...for God's sake?" Walter asks, biting his tongue because he almost accidentally blurted out Mulder's first name. Given the kid's swift wit and the rarity of Fox as a first name, William would've figured out who Mulder is right away.

"What makes you believe we're the only ones in the vastness of the universe? Why are we so vain to believe that we're the smartest life form and that only because we haven't managed to travel far enough in space to find other inhabited planets no other species would be able to do it? I don't believe in aliens, Walter, but I believe in the possibility. And as long I don't find any evidence against it, I'm looking for evidence to prove it."

Scully sighs subtly, but Helen notices and shows her a slight smile as if she wants to say, 'Men! Why don't they ever grow up?'

"Dad, you have to show me the article, I have to read it!"

Darn! Not good. Not good at all.

Scully curses the topic for having come up. Their work on the X-Files is confidential, of course, but if William googled Mulder, and she's sure it will be the first thing he'll do when he gets home, he'll find more than what would be good for him. Mulder has written quite a few essays and has been on some public panels, the boy would get more information about him, and probably also about her, than they ever wanted him to have. William most certainly is very computer-literate like all kids of his generation, he knows how to search the internet. He might even get down to information that isn't so easy to get hold of. She has to bring this to a close. Now. Otherwise it would work against everything they tried to accomplish with having given him up for adoption.

"Mulder, I think we have to get going. It's a long ride home and I'm scheduled for a complicated surgery tomorrow morning."

She doesn't even need to look at him to make him understand. Mulder gets the hint, probably realizing himself that the ice they're walking on with William gets thinner every minute. "Yeah, right. Besides, I promised you a fancy dinner. We really should be hitting the road. Traffic might be a bit rough on our way home." He orders the check, waving to the waiter.

Walter and Helen are caught off-guard by the sudden, unexpected rush, but don't intervene.

"It was nice meeting you two," Walter says and shakes Mulder's and Scully's hands. "If we wanted to get in touch with you, how could we do that?"

They can't keep in touch. Scully knows it, and Mulder knows it, too. He proposes a little cryptically, "Why don't we leave it to chance where and when we meet again?" That's not what the Van De Kamps wanted to hear obviously, but they get the point and don't insist any further.

Helen is more emotional about saying goodbye than her husband, or she's simply showing it more. She pulls Mulder into a hug and whispers into his ear to prevent William overhear the piece of advice she intends to give him. "Take good care of each other. It's easier to cope with what life demands from you as a pair. All the best, Fox!"

Then she turns to Scully. She pulls her aside, away from William. She takes her hands and squeezes them gently. "Dana, I don't know what to say. Your story has touched me deeply, but I'm so glad we met. You gave us the most precious gift, and although I know that you would've rather kept him for yourself, I want to thank you. Be assured that we will make William understand that he was loved and cherished by Fox and you, and that giving him away was an act of unselfishness on your behalf I don't think I'd be capable of performing. William has been blessed with you as his mother."

"Thank you, Helen," Scully whispers. Tears are forming in her eyes, she works hard to keep them from falling.

"And I want to assure you one more thing. We will carry on raising him as if he was our own. We will go on loving him and caring for him and protecting him. And should the day come, that Fox and you decide it was no longer dangerous for him to meet you, I'm sure you'll be able to find us."

There are so many things Scully would like to say to Helen. Like how relieved she is that William has grown up in such a warm and caring family such as theirs. Like how much she appreciates the way Helen has treated Mulder and her throughout the entire conversation. And last but not least, that had she been given the chance to choose an adoptive mother for William, it would've been someone like her. But the lump in her throat is too big, she can only glance at Helen through bleary eyes.

"It's alright, Honey, you don't have to say anything. I know. Take good care of Fox, he needs you more than you think." She embraces Scully tightly. After pulling apart she smiles gently at her and says goodbye.

"Come on, Van De Kamps, let's go!" Walter has insisted on paying the check and is shoving his family toward the door now.

William shortly nods in Mulder's direction, he's obviously not very keen on performing the usual farewell rituals of adults. "Bye, Mr. Mulder. I would've liked to talk a bit more about the extraterrestrial with you. Maybe some other time."

"Maybe some other time, William. Go on having fun playing basketball, it's a great sport!"

"I will, Sir."

Then the boy walks over to Scully, who's still standing in the little corner Helen dragged her into before. "Dr. Scully."

"Goodbye, William. Have a safe trip back."

"You really made me think about pathology being an interesting field of medicine. When I'm at the point of deciding which way to go with my medical studies, I will consider it for sure."

Scully smiles. "Whatever you choose, it will be a good decision. Of that I am sure, William."

William squints one eye. "Why do I have the feeling that you know me better than I know you?"

"It's called women's intuition. Plus I developed a good insight into human nature throughout my job. That's all. Nothing to worry about."

"Oh, I'm not worried. I'm not worried at all." He holds out his right hand. "Bye, Dr. Scully."

What else could she do but take it, establishing the first physical contact with her son after so many years of yearning for it. His hand isn't anything like the chubby little baby hand she loved to cuddle and kiss anymore. It's bigger than hers and his handshake is strong, but touching him gives her the same sensation like all those years ago: a sense of connection and togetherness. Only very reluctantly does she let go for the fear she will never again get the chance to touch him.

"Goodbye, William," she says, her voice stronger than she actually feels.

He's almost already out of the door when he stops dead and turns around. "I don't know what this was, but of one thing I'm certain: it was not a deja vu and you're not a doppelganger of someone I know."

Scully holds his gaze without replying. She hasn't got another convincing scientific explanation to offer anyway.

William shows her a telling smile. It's the last thing she sees from her son before he eventually pulls the door shut behind him.

* * *

 **Author's note:** William is a common name it a lot of languages. It's of ancient Germanic origin and is Wilhelm in today's German, Willem in Dutch, Guillaume in French, Guillermo in Spanish, Guilherme in Portuguese, and - you might have guessed - Guglielmo in Italian.


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you want me to come with you?" Mulder asks. They are still sitting in Mulder's car in front of a dull apartment building which could've have been located anywhere.

They hardly spoke on their trip back, as both of them were buried in their own thoughts about what had happened earlier today: they had seen William play basketball, had talked to him, Scully had even touched him. For them it had been a long-yearned-for reunion, for him they were total strangers, despite his assurances that he felt he knew Scully. Eventually, they reached the place Scully had moved into after having left their house in the countryside. Mulder turned the motor off and waited for Scully to exit the car, but she didn't move.

She's been silently staring through the windshield for quite a while now, and if it weren't for her ribcage rising and falling, Mulder would swear she wasn't even breathing.

"Scully? Do you need an escort upstairs?"

Mulder has been in her apartment only once; when he brought her a box full of things that belonged to her. She had moved in a short time earlier, it had still looked uninhabited and not very homey, not a bit like the cozy place she lived in when they first met.

"I don't think I can be alone right now," she says, her eyes still glued to something outside somewhere in the distance.

"No problem. I can keep your company for a while if you want me to."

"I 'd appreciate that, yes."

Mulder opens the driver's door and gets out of the car. He walks around the hood and opens the passenger door for Scully, but she remains frozen. He lowers himself to be able to talk to her at eye level, touches her shoulder gently and says, "Dana, let's go."

Being called by her first name seems to wake Scully from her trance. Suddenly her eyes flutter and she looks at Mulder. She even manages a thin smile, grabs the hand he's been holding out for her and gets out of the car. He follows her through the entrance hall of the building into one of the waiting elevators and pushes the button with the number seven on it. The doors close and they ride upstairs until they reopen with a melodic bing. Mulder nudges Scully out, gently putting his hand at the small of her back.

In front of apartment 703, Scully fumbles inside her purse until she finds her keys. Mulder recognizes a key chain very similar to the one he once gave her for her birthday and has to smile at the memory. He follows her inside and his sight falls on a pile of still unopened cardboard boxes deposited in a corner.

"Wow, when was it you moved in here again? Last week?"

The place sure looks like it. It's only scarcely furnished: a dinner table with a single chair, a small sofa in front of a tiny old tube tv set, no paintings on the wall, a light bulb in the ceiling.

Scully shrugs unemotionally. "I don't spend much time in here," she excuses herself.

"Yeah, I bet you spend more nights in the bed of the doctors' room at the hospital than here." He looks around wondering, "You do have a bed, though, don't you?"

"I do, Mulder. The bedroom is over there." She points at a narrow door to her left. "Would you like a glass of wine?"

"Don't tell me you have a stocked pantry!"

He earns himself an annoyed look with his tease. "Red or white?" Scully asks.

"Oh, there's even a choice!" Mulder grins when Scully rolls her eyes. "White," he answers.

"Okay, but it might not be chilled."

"Ha!" he chuckles. "Make it red then."

"Whatever."

She really doesn't care, she only wants the alcohol to take some of the edge off the emptiness that has settled itself on her chest like a heavy fog. When she returns from the kitchen with a bottle of Merlot and two wine glasses, she finds Mulder standing in front of the bookshelf. Something has caught his attention so it seems.

"Are you checking my book selection, Mulder?"

He startles, then turns around to Scully and holds a picture frame out to her. "You hardly unpacked any personal stuff but you put up our wedding picture?" His voice reveals his bewilderment.

"We are still married, aren't we?" is Scully's matter-of-fact reply. As if this was a satisfying explanation.

It's not, at least not for Mulder. "Yeah, but you decided you couldn't live with me anymore."

"I couldn't watch you slide deeper and deeper into the darkness anymore. That's not the same."

Mulder pulls his eyes away from her and lays them back on the picture. It shows them in a tight embrace, both laughing into the camera. They look unburdened and very much at ease. Scully wears a light summer dress with spaghetti straps, the sunlight is streaming through her hair, which is one or two shades darker than the auburn color she used to have. Mulder is dressed in a bright suit and a white shirt, without a tie, the top buttons undone. They're both barefoot on the green grass in front of a huge cherry tree in full blossom, displaying noticeably their height difference of almost ten inches.

"Look at us, Scully, we look so happy."

Scully takes the frame from his hand. She sees a couple in love, having forgotten for a while that they were wanted and constantly on the alert. They hadn't planned to get married, it was a spontaneous decision. One night, they were talking about which fake ID to use next in one of those countless interchangeable motels when Mulder asked her out of the blue whether she wanted to get married. She wanted, and two days later they were standing in front of a justice of the peace who declared them husband and wife.

"I was happy, Mulder. Very happy."

It's the truth, Scully was really happy that day. Getting married brought some normalcy into their lives, it was something people did if they loved each other and wanted to stay together forever. For a short time, they were able to sublimate all the grief and the pain over the loss of William. Their unsettled, restless lives gained a bit of steadiness and stability because from this day forth it was officially approved that they were a perfect team with the aim to love and be loved for all eternity.

"Even though we had to get married under fake names? I'm not even sure it's legitimate."

"I didn't care. I still don't."

"Yeah, well, I understand that being called Mrs. Fox Mulder is not really worth striving for." He makes a face. "I don't even remember our names at the time. They should be on the marriage license, though."

"I was Janet Myers and you were Thomas Randle." They had always tried to think of names that were catchy for people to get the first time they introduced themselves, but also ordinary enough to make the same people forget them right away.

"Right! I take thee, Janet... Now I remember." Mulder locks eyes with Scully. "My mouth said Janet, but my heart was shouting out Dana."

Dana. No matter how used she is to being called Scully by him, every time she hears him call her Dana, her heart leaps a tiny bit. During their time on the run, they didn't dare to use their real names in privacy, not even when making love at night. So strict were they with this rule that they didn't have their hastily purchased wedding bands engraved. The jeweler was somewhat surprised by them both shaking their heads so emphatically when the question came up. He probably thought they wanted to keep them for multiple uses.

"Remember how the justice of the peace tried to persuade you to take my name?" Mulder tries to emulate the justice's voice and accent. "Young Lady, through marriage you make a statement that you belong together. You strengthen that bond by sharing the name of your husband."

"I already was Mrs. Spooky, that was a bond strong enough."

They glance at each other, then both chuckle. Scully puts the picture back on the shelf with a sigh. She's had enough flashbacks for now. As wonderful as those memories are, they also remind her that they belong to the past, that things are different now.

"Here, Mulder," she hands him the corkscrew, "make yourself useful."

He takes the corkscrew from her with a wry grin and opens the bottle with a loud plop. Then he pours two glasses and sits down on the sofa with his. "What a day," he mumbles while lifting the glass to his mouth.

Scully places herself next to him. The sofa is small, so they're sitting close enough for Mulder to put his arm around her shoulder. "I don't understand it, Mulder. Why did we do that? Now? After all these years?"

"Maybe because we couldn't stand not knowing any longer? Maybe because the pain was finally too overwhelming? Maybe losing each other made the hole even bigger?"

"What if we made a terrible mistake?" A tear falls from Scully's eye and slowly rolls down her cheek. "What if we led them right to him?"

"We didn't, Scully, trust me. Even if there is some kind of surveillance program aiming at us, I hardly believe they watch our every step."

"My every step, you mean," she says flatly and touches the scar at the nape of her neck. It has faded over the years, it's almost invisible by now, but she's still able to easily locate the spot where the mysterious chip is implanted. "You should go see him again without me. Without me and this goddamn thing under my skin you can meet the Van de Kamps in secret, all three of them, without fear of being surveilled and followed by whoever."

"You can't be serious!"

"I am."

"Scully, do you really believe I would set forth on a fun afternoon with our son and leave you back home?" Mulder asks bewildered in a voice touchingly raw.

"Why not?"

"Because we're in this together. It's either the both of us or no one."

"What if..."

When her fingers find her scar again, Mulder silences her angrily, surprising her with his harsh reaction. "Don't even think of it!"

"Of what?"

"You know exactly of what! If you take it out, the cancer comes back and nothing will be able to save you this time."

"If I can see him again and keep him safe," Scully's eyes are pleading with Mulder, "Only one more time, Fox, please!" For her, it makes perfect sense. If she doesn't carry the implant with her, they won't be able to track her down, and if they're not able to track her down, they're aren't able to track William down either.

"It won't keep him any safer than he already is, but it will kill you. I won't let you do this!" His hazel eyes, which usually look at her with affection, are shrewd now and very determined.

In a moment of despair and confusion, Scully disentangles herself from Mulder's embrace and lets herself sink against the sofa's backrest. She closes her eyes and another tear jumps out. She feels overpowered by Mulder. How dare he impinge on her plans? He's not allowed to determine her life. It's her decision and hers alone. If she wants to cut that chip out of her neck, she can do it, she doesn't have to ask for his permission. She's still somewhat worked up because of what she thinks is a rude interference in her personal affairs when she suddenly feels Mulder's lips on hers. Not in a lovers kiss, but in a kiss as friends, like the kiss they shared on the memorable Millennium night. Sweet, but not passionate.

Scully doesn't move. She doesn't reciprocate, but she doesn't pull back either. She just lets his soft lips touch hers and to her surprise, she enjoys the sensation it sends through her body. She scolds herself for deliberately misreading his motives. He doesn't want to determine her life or tell her what to do, of course not. It's not fair to even think something like that. Mulder only wants to protect her and in a way also himself. He can't see her fall sick again, he can't go through that hell with her once more. Her decisions don't affect only her, but also him. Like Mulder said, they're in this together.

Mulder, for his part, misinterprets Scully's signals, or rather the lack thereof. "I'm sorry," he mumbles as he pulls back from the kiss and awkwardly slides a bit away from her, as far as possible on the small piece of furniture.

Scully instantly regrets her inertia. "Mulder," she says looking at him and stroking his cheek, "don't ever apologize for kissing me."

"I just thought...because you didn't...well, I don't know."

"It's okay. I'm fine. The kiss was nice. It's just that-"

Words don't come easily to either of them at the moment.

"What?"

"This day... It has simply been too much for me. It overwhelmed me, floored me, disconcerted me. I don't know what to say or what to do, and I don't know what to feel. I'm confused."

"You don't have to say or do or feel anything right now. Just sit here with me and have a glass of wine, Scully. We don't have to talk. We can lean back, look at our wedding picture, and each dwell on our own thoughts or don't contemplate at all if you wish. I don't care. I just don't want you to be alone right now, and honestly, I don't want to be alone either."

Mulder's words feel like a cooling hand on a feverish forehead. How come he still cares for her that much although she left him in the lurch? What has she done to deserve this man?

Said man picks Scully's glass from the coffee table where it still sits untouched and hands it to her, holding his out for her to clink. When their eyes meet across the rim of their glasses, Mulder's cry out his concern for her.

Had she spoken the question out loud, Mulder would've answered that she's the most reliable and loyal partner he's ever worked with, that she's the most understanding and giving friend he's ever had, that she's the most alluring and infatuating lover he's ever shared his bed with, and last but capping it all, that she is his son's mother; the latter being a lifelong connection that can never be cut through. Scully will always be William's mother whether the kid is a part of their lives or not. She carried his child and brought him to this earth, and in Mulder's eyes that alone makes her the most wonderful person in the whole wide world.

After Scully has taken a tiny sip of wine, she puts the glass back on the table. All of a sudden, she sees no sense in getting drunk anymore. By simply keeping her company, Mulder has eased her mind, and unexpectedly, completely unexpectedly, the gloomy melancholia that used to push her down is starting to fade. From deep down in her gut something else is climbing up, a soothing, comforting sensation, something empowering and reassuring. It's a vague mixture of emotions she doesn't really know how to put into words.

"It's not possible to not feel anything when you're kissing me."

Mulder raises an eyebrow. "Oh? And that is so very awful?"

Scully shakes her head staring at her hands. "No, it's not awful."

"And what exactly are your feelings when I'm kissing you?"

"It's not so easy to explain."

"My feelings for you are easy to explain," Mulder says, showing her his puppy eyes and pouty lips.

"Mulder, please, don't make this harder for me than it already is."

"That's not what I intended to do but I can't help it. I love you, Scully, it's as simple as that."

Simple? If it only were that simple for her. At this very moment, she's afraid she's going to burst because a tsunami of emotions has been sweeping across her today. There are her feelings for her son, infinite love but also guilt and regret. The feelings for William's adoptive parents mainly consist of gratitude and appreciation, but also of jealousy and bitterness. And her feelings for Mulder? Are they simple like his for her, or are they rather complex, even contradictory to some extent? She loves him too, sure - she always has and always will - but is that all?

Her contemplations are interrupted when Mulder scoots over to her on the sofa again. He leans in, his dark eyes hypnotizing her and his warm breath tickling her cheek as he speaks.

"The first months after you left were like hell. I fell into an even deeper hole than I already had been in, blaming you for it, cursing you for leaving me alone in that mess. I didn't take my antidepressants anymore but drowned my despair in alcohol, pitying myself for what I had lost; my sister, my parents, my son...you."

"Mulder..." Scully winces at the recollection of the recurring fears that tortured her when she had first moved out: Mulder unshaven and disheveled, not caring to eat or sleep properly, shutting himself off the rest of the world in his dark office with a bottle of scotch. In her worst dreams, he even smoked. Morleys.

"Hear me out, Scully," Mulder says, jumping off the sofa and pacing back and forth in the living room. "Finally, there was the day I realized I had two choices. Letting myself slide further into the abyss of grief and anger, being mad at everyone who did this to me, was one. It appealed to me, I have to say. It would've been so easy to just sedate my heart a little more every day until it would've been completely numb. There would've been no regrets, no sadness, no loss anymore. No pain whatsoever. An alluring prospect, right?"

Mulder stops short for a moment as if to wait for Scully's reaction but she doesn't do him the favor. Partly because she knows he didn't choose this option; he wouldn't be here with her right now if he had. Partly because a feeling of failure is welling up within her that despite her greatest efforts she wasn't able to help him heal.

"I've been riding this wave for quite some time. It was huge, threatening, powerful. A monster wave. There were days I didn't even care if it swallowed me and never spit me out again. Underwater, all these inner voices that told me to get my self-righteous butt in gear were muffled. I felt weightless and protected inside this wave, like a baby in a mother's womb."

"What happened?" Scully whispers, her voice tear-stricken. "What made you resurface?"

Mulder joins her on the sofa again. "I choked. Contrary to my hopes, I couldn't breathe underwater. Eventually, I needed to fill my lungs with air. When I stuck my head out of the water, I knew I needed a kiss of life to survive, and I could only imagine one person giving it to me." He looks into Scully's compassionate eyes as he continues, "I don't think I have to voice the name of that person."

Scully's facial features are stone-still upon Mulder telling his story. She'd imagined he'd struggled, that his way back wasn't easy, but that he was at the crossroads of giving up on his life hits her to the core and adds a feeling of guilt to the prior feeling of having failed.

"All I needed was you in my life, Scully. I simply couldn't live without you. I couldn't even booze myself out of this world without you."

"I'm so sorry." Her voice is hardly audible. She wants to say more, but her emotions suffocate her.

"It wasn't your fault. I finally understood why you had to go. I began to realize how difficult it must have been for you to bear living with a pitiful, insensitive bastard like me, who was only thinking about himself and his pain, neglecting completely how sore at heart you were. I'm the one who's sorry and I'm asking you for forgiveness, Dana."

He's called her Dana again. The burning tears are flowing unrestrainedly down Scully's cheeks now. They drop from her chin to burst on the back of her hands resting in her lap. Mulder takes them in his big, strong ones and puts them to his mouth. He kisses the tears away, tasting their salty flavor and feeling their stinging heat on his lips.

"The best thing that could've happened to me was you leaving. I know it sounds absurd but when you were gone, I started to heal. I couldn't deceive myself anymore. I couldn't persuade myself anymore that everything was okay, because when you were gone, nothing was okay. I was lucky enough to realize, although I had worked so hard to macerate my brain. So, I made a choice and put it into action right away. I flushed all the alcohol down the toilet, I started taking my meds again, I made an appointment with the therapist you mentioned, and I cleared my office, threw all the stuff away that made me crazy. And...I called your mother."

"My mother?"

"Yes, I called your mother. She once told me I could turn to her whenever I needed her. So I did. I simply needed a Scully woman in my life and she was willing to play that part. We talked a lot on the phone. I called her in the middle of the night a few times when the fear of failing yet again was paralyzing. We talked about everything and nothing. Sometimes, we would just sit together in silence. She was a much-treasured support. Also through her, I felt a little closer to you."

"She never breathed a word to me that she was conversing with you."

"I asked her not to. I didn't want her to become the arbiter between us. Of course, I asked her how you were doing and always hoped she wouldn't tell me you were seeing someone."

Scully looks deeply into Mulder's eyes, explores him, his fears and doubts, lets him see her sadness as well.

Seeing someone else...unthinkable! How could she ever have a relationship with another man after what she had with Mulder, is still having with him, to be precise? They aren't through yet, even though happy romance seems to be impossible. How often have they enjoyed long periods of carefree happiness within the many years they've spent together? How often have they not been worried about the other or saving the other from peril? It can be counted on the fingers of one hand. But still, Mulder is the yang to her yin, her perfect other, the missing piece that completes her puzzle. She would never be able to make another man understand how she's become the person she is today. Why she shivers when she hears the word 'alien', why she can't stand people smoking Morleys, and why she becomes melancholic and withdrawn when she's asked whether she has any children. She can't picture another man out there titillating her every sense as Mulder can, quickening her intelligence, warming her heart, soothing her soul, and nurturing her physicality.

She isn't looking for someone else. How could she? It's Mulder or no one.

At the current stage of her life, it's no one.

They are back on cordial terms with each other, they can talk again, which is good. The lack of communication between them after her moving out had left her deaf-mute, and as Scully is someone who's used to intellectual discourse, who enjoys exchanging views about almost anything, it was giving her a particularly hard time. Mulder had been her sounding board for so long, she missed terribly being able to talk to him; above anything else she missed. Working with him on the X-Files again has reopened the communication channel and she's silently thanked Skinner more than once for having asked her to get hold of Mulder because of a case he wanted his two former Special Agents to have a look at.

"Mulder?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm glad you managed to escape from the darkness. It's good to have you back."

She's not yet ready for more honesty than that, although this day has shown her that a history like theirs is entitled to be an indestructible bond. All parents are tied together for life through their children, but in their case, the exceptional circumstances of their miracle child, beginning with the day Mulder found out Scully's ova had been taken up to the moment they stood in front of their son who had no idea who they were, connect them in a way that weathers even a painful breakup.

"You're glad to have me back?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm glad you're glad."

They stare at each other as if asking what to do next. Then Mulder scoots over until their legs touch. He cups Scully's face and kisses her once more, and this time she reciprocates. Even if she had wanted to resist the temptation, she wouldn't have stood the ghost of a chance. It's like keeping a beach ball under water, you can try as much as you want, you just can't do it. The moment his lips touch hers and the tip of his tongue starts playing with hers, it's the end of her. She willingly gives herself to his caress, losing herself in his familiar touch and taste.

Their kiss is slow and conscious, both know that with this kiss they're bringing their relationship back to a level it had been once already. Mulder is stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, Scully is fondling his neck. With their eyes closed, their mouths melded, and their tongues intertwined, they embark on the journey back to one another. The sensation is so galvanic and invigorating, it breathes life into two bodies that have been hollow and numb for the longest time.

"Mmmmulder," Scully whispers after a while, "this brings back memories."

"I missed you," he answers with his lips not really leaving hers. It's Scully who eventually breaks the kiss. She puts her palms at Mulder's face and gives him a blank look. "I missed you too, but not only since I went away."

Mulder puts his arms around her and squeezes her tiny body gently against his chest, letting her feel his warmth and strength.

"I know, my dear Dana. I wasn't myself back then. I'm heartbroken that after all you had to go through because of me, I screwed up that chance of yours for a normal life. I behaved like a wounded animal that didn't want to be helped nor brought to safety. And yet I needed help so badly, but somehow I couldn't confide in you. The therapist explained to me later that losing a child can do that to a couple. Mother and father choose diverging ways to cope with the grief, which eventually leads to miscommunication and misconception. Unfortunately, that seemed to have happened to us. To us, Scully! To us, who had been able to comfort one another through the worst of incidents until then."

"Being on the run for so many years completely depleted us, Mulder. All those years we had to be on our guard against them, we didn't find the strength to cope with having lost William, and when we were finally having the life we longed for for so long, we had immured the pain and weren't able to set it free to deal with it anymore. At least, that's what happened to me."

"When we moved into that house, that beautiful, cozy house, I felt his absence more clearly than ever. Maybe because it was the perfect place for a man to raise his son," Mulder says. "Every morning, when we were sitting at the breakfast table, I imagined him rocking his chair backward and forward, shoveling huge stacks of pancakes into his mouth before darting off to school. It hurt so much that one day I decided not to have breakfast anymore just to prevent that agonizing pain from torturing me over and over again. Why I couldn't tell you the reason for my behavior, I don't know."

"What an irony that during my pregnancy and after he was born we weren't allowed to enjoy togetherness, at least not for long, and when we were finally together, it didn't help us much getting over having lost him."

"Today was different!" Mulder pulls back to be able to look at Scully. "Today we were together in this, really together. I haven't felt fatherhood so strongly since the day we brought him home to your apartment."

"When you kissed me," Scully says, smiling dreamily.

"When I kissed you."

Scully takes a long, deep breath. Why did it have to be so difficult? Why hadn't they been allowed to be happy? Is it over and done with or do they still have a chance for happiness?

"Mulder," she cups his face with both hands, "stay the night."

"Uhm, do you...really think this is...such a good idea?" he stammers.

"Just to hold me. I don't think I can sleep tonight without you holding me." Scully can't help sounding so desperate and disheartened.

Of course, Mulder stays for the night. When they crawl into Scully's bed half an hour later, she snuggles against him, rests her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. Mulder strokes her back with one hand and her hand on his chest with the other. For a while, they remain silent, simply enjoying the fact that they are not alone, feeling the other's nearness, giving the other strength although each of them feels so weak.

"I love you, Scully."

"I love you, too, Mulder. Thanks for staying."

"My pleasure."

He embraces her a little more tightly, she clings a little closer to him, and before they know it, they're both crossing the threshold to the comforting, soothing, and healing state of sleep.

* * *

 **A MONTH LATER**

The knock is so loud it could wake up the dead.

"Scully! I know you're in there! C'mon, open up! Scullyyy!"

Scully hears Mulder's excited, cracking voice in the hallway in front of her apartment and can't imagine what he could be so agitated about. "Just a minute," she shouts, tying a knot in the belt of her bathrobe. "Would you stop banging at my door, Mulder?"

She was just about to let herself glide into a hot bubble bath with a glass of wine and a good book. She needs distraction, and a light read would help her get her mind off the things that have been bothering her. The last four weeks since Mulder's and her coincidental encounter with William and his adoptive parents have been very demanding for Scully. Her feelings have been swaying between joyful relief, for her son is safe and loved, and aching bitterness, for it was even more clear what Mulder and she have been denied.

Since that day, she keeps having a recurring nightmare where the two of them are watching William eat, sleep, go to school, play, laugh, cry,... through what appears to be a huge window to his life, allowing them to look at him but not to intervene. In her dream, they are banging at the glass, shouting, Mulder is throwing a chair trying to break it, but they don't get through to him, no matter how hard they try. The dream always ends the same way: they overhear William say, "I wish I could ask them why they didn't want to have me," both pull out their guns to shoot the window to pieces, but they turn out to be toy weapons and only colorful confetti emerges from them. That's usually the moment Scully wakes up drenched in cold sweat, shaking, and screaming for William.

That's why she can't bring herself to move back into their country home in Virginia, although Mulder has asked her more than once, and she was indeed tempted. Mulder's strong broad shoulders and his compassionate soul would be more than just comforting for her, she knows, and she badly needs to be comforted. She feels vulnerable and weak and the pain in her chest comprises a rigid structure of anger, jealousy and shame, but she doesn't want to go back only because she needs him. If she goes back, it has to be because she's certain that they're going to make it this time. Mulder wouldn't survive another breakup. Neither would she.

The impatient knocking hasn't ceased, although he must have heard that she's coming to the door already.

"I'm on my way!" Scully yells somewhat annoyed and upon tearing the door open, she scolds him. "What's the matter with you, Mulder? Do you want to get me thrown out of this place?"

Mulder completely ignores her on his way into the apartment, as if he didn't hear what Scully has said or simply doesn't care to respond.

"What took you so long?" he asks her reproachfully instead.

"Pardon me? I left the hospital two hours ago after a 12-hour shift and I was going to take a bath if it's all right with you!"

"I've got something to show you."

"Mulder, can't your theories wait until tomorrow? I'm exhausted, I have a headache, my feet hurt, and my tub is waiting for me."

"Forget the tub, Scully! Look!" He draws an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and holds it in front of her nose.

"What is this?"

"A letter."

"I can see it's a letter." Scully is bugged. What's wrong with this man? Does he never take a break? If he's jumping head first into cases like this again, he'll soon be captivated by the X-Files anew.

"Skinner called me this afternoon and asked me to drop by his office as quickly as possible. When I arrived he ushered me in, seated me in front of his desk, showed me a concerned face like old times, and gave me this letter."

"Skinner gave it to you? What's so special about it?" It looks like a boringly normal letter: white envelope, typed address, stamp, post mark. It must be the contents that's out of the ordinary. Scully sighs. "If it has anything to do with a case, I don't want to see it right now but I promise I'll take care of it first thing in the morning."

"It has nothing to do with a case but look for yourself."

Scully rolls her eyes and purses her lips, a facial reaction typical for her when she finally gives in, knowing that Mulder wouldn't let her off the hook anyway. She snatches the letter out of his hand. "I'm warning you, Mulder. If this is some odd, blurred picture of a UFO or newspaper clipping about an encounter of the third kind, I'm going to kill you!"

Mulder throws her a blank look. He pulls the chair out from beside her little dining table and motions for her to sit down. Scully shrugs but decides to do as she's been told to get it over with and be eventually allowed to let her tense body sink into her bath tub.

She examines the letter and starts with the front. Agents Dr. Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, it says, c/o Federal Bureau of Investigation, followed by the complete address which can easily be researched on the internet. She arches an eyebrow. That's weird. Mail was hardly ever personally addressed to them, and if it was, it was very seldom addressed to the both of them, let alone with the affix 'care of'.

She looks at the post mark. The letter was posted in South Dakota. A few cases of minor importance have led them to South Dakota, but not recently. Why would they get mail from there? None of this makes any sense.

Scully turns the envelope around to have a look at the sender and groans. "An anonymous letter? Seriously, Mulder? You're keeping me away from my well-deserved hot bath because of an anonymous letter? You've got to be kidding!"

"Trust me, Scully. Open it," he calls for her to go on with the procedure.

"Alright," Scully lets out a deep sigh. She opens the envelope and to her surprise, she finds another letter inside. On this one, Mulder and she are indicated as addressees in a somewhat scrawly handwriting. The sender didn't care to write down the complete address of the FBI again, only their names and the note 'private & confidential'. Scully frowns. "For heaven's sake, what is this?"

"Turn it around."

Scully closes her eyes. This feels like some childish game Mulder is playing with her, and his lopsided, undecipherable grin is only strengthening the impression. "Mulder..."

"Turn...it...around, Scully," he insists.

So she eventually turns the letter around and almost faints when her eyes fall on the name of the sender. The person didn't write down a full address, only a name. A first name. William.

"What?" Scully gasps. The room temperature seems to have risen a few degrees, she feels a hot flash passing through her body.

Mulder lays his hand gently on her shoulder. "It's a letter from him to us, Scully. Can you imagine? He wrote us a letter." His voice is thin and shaken by emotions.

"How did he know where to find us?" Scully whispers.

"Well, I guess Helen and Walter told him what they heard from us, obviously my first name among other things. We let him know that we are with the Bureau and so he was hoping that if he sent the letter to the Hoover Building, its mail room would be able to forward it to us. And he was right. There's this one guy in the mail room who's been there like forever, at least since we were the faces of the X-Files, and he still knows about our connection with Skinner. That's how the letter ended up on his desk."

"Why didn't he call me as well?"

"I guess he wanted to protect you. There are a lot of jerks out there, mailing weird things. He had it screened and x-rayed before he handed it over to me."

"He opened it?"

"Only the outer envelope. When he saw who the sender was, he instantly called me." Mulder squeezes Scully's hand. "The kid is smart, Scully! There are no fingerprints, on none of the two envelopes. As a precautionary measure, he put the handwritten letter into a standard envelope with a typed address label and mailed it from South Dakota instead of Wyoming. I assume, his parents explained to him that we were blocking any direct contact for safety reasons, but he was looking for a way to get in touch with us anyhow."

"I can't believe this is happening." Scully stares at the unknown handwriting. "What does it say?"

"I haven't read it yet, I wanted to do that together with you. Are you ready for this?"

She isn't sure. What if this is going to be the realization of her nightmare? What if this is William's reckoning and he's accusing her of having given him up? What if he tells them he never wants to see them again and they will never be able to explain? Not that they could anyway, but it's one thing not to be able to and another to be told not to. On the other hand, can she really bear not to know what he's written?

"Read it out, Mulder, please."

In lack of a second chair, Mulder pulls up a footstool and places it opposite Scully. He opens the second envelope with William's handwriting on it, pulls out two sheets of paper and unfolds them. The handwriting is angular and obviously one of a left-hander. He inhales deeply and clears his throat. "Alright, let's hear what you have to tell us, Kid!"

He starts to read.

 _Dear Dana and Fox,_

 _I hope it's okay to start the letter like this. Dr. Scully and Mr. Mulder don't seem appropriate in the light of the circumstances. Although I'd like to refer to you as Mom and Dad also and hope it's okay with you._

"What?" Scully interrupts, "he calls us Mom and Dad?"

"Yup."

"Let me have a look!" She's not ready to believe it until she sees it in black and white. Mulder gives her the sheet, equally baffled at William's choice of words as she is. Scully stares at the paper, seeing, but not seeing the letters as she can hardly focus because of the tears welling up in her eyes. Finally, she recognizes the words, unequivocal and clear: Mom and Dad. "I've never been called Mom, Mulder." She puts her hand on her chest in an effort to calm the emotions that are threatening to tear her to pieces. "I've had two children and never heard either of them call me their mother. I can't believe he's willing to do that." Mulder reaches out for Scully and she gladly takes his hand to give it a quick squeeze. "Go on, please," she asks him.

 _So, Dad, we have the same name! Fox! It's not a name I come across too often. As a matter of fact, you're the only person I know with that name apart from myself. My father told me that you're somewhat sensitive about being called Fox, that you prefer Mulder. I don't understand, though, it's a cool name. I like it._

"So do I," Scully agrees with her son "I've always liked it."

"Yeah, I remember you crying it out a couple of times the night we made William," Mulder replies in a voice as warming as a glass of sherry on cold winter night.

"Uh, well...yes." Scully presses her lips together and avoids Mulder's gaze. "Continue."

 _Where shall I start?_

 _Maybe at the gym, when we first met. It was a surreal experience for me. For you, too?_

"You bet, my son!" Mulder answers the question without taking his eyes from the letter.

 _Like I said, I had the feeling we had met before. You tried to talk me out of it, but the feeling was so strong. I had never experienced anything like this before, an emotional connection to someone, an adult, that was a complete stranger to me. You tried to downplay the whole incident, especially you, Mom, but the more you insisted it was nothing out of the ordinary, the more I felt there had to be something more to it. Your eyes were so familiar to me, maybe because I see them every day when I look in the mirror._

 _Now that I've seen you, Dad, Fox ;-) (you are familiar with emoticons, aren't you?) ..._

"Are you kidding me, Buddy?" Mulder is indignant about his son doubting they are up-to-date enough to know what an emoticon is.

 _... I know where I got my height from. I outgrew my mother at the age of 12 and my father two years later. I knew I was an adopted child, so I always believed my biological parents must have been tall. And right I was, at least with one parent. Sorry, Dana, but you're even shorter than my adoptive mom. LOL._

"L-O-L... Geez, what's wrong with kids today? Can't they write a letter without using any of those internet codes? I'm surprised he's not asking whether we know what that means." Mulder shakes his head.

"In his eyes, we're old, Mulder."

"We're not old! We're...middle-aged, experienced, adult."

"Those are just synonyms for the same phenomenon. Think back to when you were a teenager. What did you think of your parents' generation?"

"That they were one foot in the grave."

"See! The older we get, the more we perceive aging differently. Time seems to pass faster but simultaneously we believe it doesn't so much for us. We think we are as young as we feel we are, but a year is a year, no matter whether we're fifteen or fifty."

"Thank you, Miss Science, for reminding me of my current status as a _Wrinkly_."

"You're definitely not a _Wrinkly_! You're in pretty good shape, Mulder." With a slight smile that curls up at the corners of her mouth, she adds, "still hunky."

"Oh, yeah?"

"C'mon! That's what you expected me to say, didn't you?"

"So you're lying just to make me feel good."

"No, I'm not lying, Mulder, but we're drifting away from the topic here. Stop fishing for compliments and let's go back to the letter."

"Okay, where was I? Uhm...right...'Sorry, Dana, but you're even shorter than my adoptive mom. LOL.' Here we go."

Mulder doesn't have to look at Scully to know that she's rolling her eyes, but after being teased by her he thought he had the right to tease her a little in return. Only then is he ready to focus on William's letter again.

 _And then we had this great conversation at the café. Don't get me wrong, my parents, my adoptive parents, are wonderful people and I love them both very much, but they stem from generations of farming families and a lot of the things that are important to me don't mean so much to them. The natural sciences, for example, or computer sciences and the internet. I've been interested in medicine ever since I broke my arm when I was six years old. I was fascinated by the x-ray of my broken bone and even more fascinated when I saw an x-ray of the same bone three months later after it had grown together again. From that moment on, I wanted to know everything about how the human body is built and how it works. That my birth mother is a medical doctor and scientist is amazing (I read your master's thesis on Einstein by the way. It's available on the internet, did you know that?)^_

"No, I didn't."

"He read it, and I bet he understood it. At least, most parts. I read it, too, as you know, when I was told a young female agent called Dr. Dana Scully was going to be my new partner. Definitely no light fare, at least for an arts scholar like me, a pseudo-scientist in your eyes."

"Mulder, you've got the quickest and wittiest brain I've ever come across in my entire life."

He coughs slightly in pretended abashment but flashes her a thankful smile. "Let me go on with the letter."

 _What you told me about forensic pathology sounded like a perfect combination of medicine and science to me. I would love to learn more about it. Maybe one day you can tell me everything about your work with the FBI._

 _As I told you, I'm also interested in astronomy and space research. When I asked my father about your article, he admitted that it had been a white lie to leave me in the dark about who you were. But I found some interesting essays you published anyway. Have you ever googled Fox Mulder? You should. Out-of-the-ordinary names are easy to google, you'd be surprised at how many hits you get by entering it into a search engine (don't try anything like Peter Smith, though). I found out that you wrote a lot about occultism, paranormal activities, and the indications of the extraterrestrial on earth. Some bold theories, I must say, subject to debate, but interesting for sure._

"Great! My theories are not only doubted by my partner-slash-wife, but also by my 15-year old son. What have I done wrong?"

Scully chuckles. "Simmer down, Mulder! In the end, I've always followed you, haven't I?"

"Yes, that's true. I can't think of a more gullible partner than you."

"Excuse me?"

"Trusting, I wanted to say. Trusting and reliable."

"Nice try."

They lock eyes shortly until both can't hold back a grin, then Mulder starts reading again.

 _Thank you for telling my parents about the circumstances of my adoption. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to know everything about it. That doesn't mean that I'm looking for new parents, I'm pretty happy with the ones I got. I hope you understand. I've never lacked anything, least of all love and care. I was disappointed when I found out that the records are kept confidential. I wondered why, but I guess you had your reasons and assume it has something to do with your work. My parents also told me that we cannot meet and really get to know each other because of security risks. I can't really pin down what they mean by it, but I accept it. What else can I do?_

 _I hope things change down the road and one day I'll be able to ask my biological parents everything I want to. I have a lot of questions for you. What the first ten months of my life with you were like, for example. I know why you named me Fox, what about William, does that name have any special significance for you? What did you do when I was gone? Do I have any brothers or sisters? Where do you live? Do you have any pets? Do you think of me once in a while?_

"What? Whether we think of him comes after whether or not we have a pet? Someone help me understand these teenagers!" Mulder shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Every day, my son," Scully whispers, "we think of you every day."

 _So, I really hope this letter has reached you. Well, it obviously has because you're reading these lines. If you can, write me back. I'm sure you know where I live, or you're able to find out. If you can't, well, I guess there's no way for me to ascertain whether you can't or simply don't want to as you can't write me back telling me you can't write me back. Knowing you though from our brief encounters and from what my parents told me about you, I assume you would write me back if you could._

 _Hope to meet you again some day,  
_ _your son William_

"Oh my God, Mulder, that's the nightmare I've been having ever since that day at the gym!" Scully buries her face in her hands. Her breathing becomes so rapid and shallow, she's almost hyperventilating.

"Your nightmare?"

"Yes. I've been dreaming that we watch him through a huge window, being able to see what he's doing and hear what he's saying, but it's a one-way street, we're unable to get through to him. We cannot explain to him how we feel, that we love him. We cannot tell him how much we miss him."

Mulder stares at her, his eyes full of compassion when he hears that she's been tortured by nightmares. "What a bloody idiot I am! I should've known that when you say you're fine just the opposite is true. Why didn't you tell me earlier? I could've stayed with you for a night or two, actually for as many nights as you needed me."

"I didn't want to take advantage of you."

"You didn't want to take advantage of me? Are you nuts? Scully, for better, for worse, do you remember?"

Scully bites her lower lip so hard, it starts bleeding. She looks at Mulder silently. Sunk down against the sofa's backrest and kneading her fingers in her lap, she looks like a little school girl who has been convicted of having copied someone else's homework. Eventually, she whispers, "I have the feeling it will get worse and worse, Mulder. I'm afraid I will never be able to stop mourning for him."

"You don't have to. Who told you you have to stop mourning for your lost child? What you can do, though, is share your grief with me. I wasn't capable of helping you back then, but I am now. Let me help you, Scully!"

Mulder brushes the tears off her cheek. He lays his arm around her shoulder and presses her tiny body against his as if he wants to take in every fiber of her being into his own. He lets her feel his strength and his resolve to make this right for her.

"We'll find a way to be reconnected to him. I can't tell you yet how we're going to do it, but I'll figure something out. Something that does not involve taking the chip out of your neck. I won't let these sons of bitches make our lives miserable until the end of time. We don't deserve this. William doesn't deserve this. I'll find a way, Scully, I swear upon my soul!"

Against all common sense, Scully allows herself to believe him. When William was still with her and she had to protect him all by herself, she wished for Mulder to be at her side, to support her emotionally but also in her struggle to keep the boy safe. When they moved into their country house, she wished for Mulder to be her safety net whenever she felt like falling down into the abyss of gloom. He had failed her twice, but today he sounds so assured, so determined, and so very strong. This time, he could be the rock she needs because when it comes to losing her son, Scully is vulnerable and helpless. Over the years, she has learned to accept that particular weakness of hers.

After a while, when her breathing has become regular again and her shoulders aren't shaking anymore, Mulder fumbles a small pouch out of his pants pocket.

"Here's a little something I wanted to give you."

Scully sits up and takes the pouch from him with a questioning look on her face. "More surprises, Mulder?"

"I planned to give it to you a few days ago but couldn't find the right moment. It's meant to be a surprise, yes, although I'm afraid the letter is hard to top."

"What is it?"

"Have a look."

Scully unknots the yellow drawstring that is wrapped around the little red velvety pouch. She pokes inside dainty-fingered and pulls out two plain golden rings. "Our wedding bands?"

"I found yours in the bathroom cabinet when I stayed overnight after William's basketball game. You told me I would find some aspirin in there, and when I searched the cabinet for it I accidentally knocked a small wooden box over and it fell out. I don't know why, but I took it. A few days later, I had an idea."

"What idea?"

"Find out yourself."

Scully looks at the rings in the palm of her hand. When they decided to get married, they lacked the time to look extensively for weddings bands, so they chose a set of plain yellow gold rings at the first jeweler they came across. They look almost like new. During their time underground, they had to hide them often because they weren't always acting as a married couple. When they had settled down and Scully worked at the hospital, she had to take it off for every surgery she performed. Mulder chose to carry his around in his pocket. He said his hand wasn't made for wearing a ring, but actually, he had already been on the downward spiral, cutting himself off from life's little pleasures, one of which was being married to the woman who had sacrificed so much to be with him.

She turns the smaller ring between her index finger and thumb, the ring he had put on her finger that wonderful summer day in front of the justice of the peace in a forgotten Midwest town, then she notices it. "You had them engraved!" 5,000-one-000,000, she reads. It takes her a moment to understand the context of the inscription, but then she has to smile.

"You remember the case?" Mulder asks.

"I do. You saw monsters, just like that guy from the telemarketing agency who held you hostage together with some of his colleagues."

"You saw that monster in my hospital room too, although you couldn't bring yourself to admitting it in your report. I know it! You rushed into my room end emptied your entire magazine, Scully!"

"Are you saying that with this case I became as crazy as you?"

"Wasn't it you who called it a folie à deux?"

"I said that?"

"Yes, you did. You said we shared the same madness."

She forces a smile. "Madness? Yeah, that's probably the best explanation!"

"All jokes aside, during that case I figured as clearly and distinctly as never before that forever you would be the only person who believed in me, who trusted me enough to follow me anywhere despite this skeptic scientist's brain of yours that constantly told you otherwise. You were my jackpot, Scully. I think it was the moment I realized that I couldn't fall in love with any other of the five billion living on this planet but you. That's why I thought it might be a good inscription."

"You are aware that only half of the population is female, so properly speaking, I'm only your one in 2.5 billion."

"And you are aware that the world's population has grown to 6 billion by now, so properly speaking, you're my one in three billion. Do you want me to get the inscription changed? Just to ease your scientist's mind?"

"No, I think in this case I can live with the scientific inaccuracy of an arts scholar." She tries to put on a serious face but her blue eyes beam at him. "Actually, the inscription is very sweet, Mulder. I'm deeply touched. Really."

"Do you want to know what I had engraved in mine?"

Scully takes a closer look at the bigger of the two rings and squints one eye to be able to make out the inscription. Dana & Fox always, it says. She closes her eyes as a wave of emotions is breaking over her.

"Not Myers and Randle, not Mrs. and Mr. Spooky, not even Scully and Mulder, but Dana and Fox. You and me, as simple and as wonderful as that," Mulder explains and swallows, as he sees the effect it has on Scully. He's chosen their first names for the inscription, the names they hardly ever call each other. The rare moments they used them had all been very special, private and intimate.

Mulder called her Dana for the first time after her father's passing when he tried to console her. Her undergoing hypnotic regression to relive her abduction had been another moment he called her Dana. It seems as if crucial experiences have led him to use her first name instead of the ever-present Scully. In the emails he wrote to her when he had been hiding he had always addressed her as Dana. His 'Dearest Dana' at the beginning of his messages had almost ripped her heart apart.

He had asked her not to call him Fox, had literally demanded it from her the first time she used the name. She was about to tell him she would put herself on the line for him, an admission coming from the depth of her heart that couldn't have been any more committing and entrusting, especially given the short time they had been working together at that point. Mulder had been so emphatic about being called Mulder, that she hadn't dared to call him Fox all those years until their first night together, the night she conceived William; he hadn't minded then. Only recently had she called him by his first name again, when they were sitting on a log at a lake, her mother's urn at their feet. She had poured her heart out to him about how she ached for answers about their son, she was so violable and lost that she had felt the overwhelming need to call him Fox; and he had allowed it.

When push comes to shove, when things get straight down to the very center of existence, when nothing else comforts anymore, then Scully and Mulder turn into Dana and Fox. It's their ultimate safety net, a lifeline only they can throw to each other. These wedding bands are nothing else but life preservers, they were when they had first gotten married, and they are now as they are about to renew what they used to be.

"Do you want to put it on?" Mulder asks.

"Yes," she whispers.

He takes her hand and slips the band on her ring finger. Without looking at her, he puts his on, too.

"You're going to wear yours?"

"Yes. I was so dumb back then. I want everyone to know that I'm a married man. Speaking of which, I also wanted to get our marriage license updated, but legally, things get a little murky."

Scully's eyebrow shoots up. "A little?"

"Well, yeah, the whole idea of getting married under a fake ID probably wasn't such a good idea. Legally speaking, I mean. With my precarious record, it could get me into trouble admitting I lied to a state official about my identity. So I thought we could leave things as they are." He shrugs, "It's not important to me, actually. With or without a license, you're my better half, Scully. If you'd rather have it legalized, though, I won't hesitate a second to kneel down, propose and we'll get married as Fox Mulder and Dana Scully this time."

"No need," she looks at the ring on her finger, "this is good enough for me."

She leans in for a kiss. His lips are soft and sweet and the kiss promising. When they pull apart, Mulder looks deeply into her eyes and asks, "Are you coming home, Scully?"

"Yes, Mulder, I'm coming home."

 **THE END** (for now)

* * *

Many thanks to the wonderful VioletStella for corrupting me with the series and working so hard with me on this story.


	4. Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

It broke my heart to watch Scully at the lake in 'Home Again' telling Mulder that she would never get answers to her questions about William. I thought the poor woman deserved some answers. That's how this whole story got started: I let her see her son (first part of chapter 1).

Then I wanted her to be able to talk to him (second part of chapter 1 and chapter 2), and after that I realized that having met him briefly once without being able to really talk to him or have him in her life afterwards (chapter 3) might be even more painful for her. So, I had to come up with a possibility for her to share her son's life. This is what the epilogue is about...

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

* * *

 **SOME SUMMER DAY**

"Hurry, Mom, I want you to meet someone!"

William tears the passenger door open, grabs Scully's hand, and pulls her out of the car as soon as Mulder has turned off the ignition.

Over the last eight years, they have been visiting this place on a sporadic basis several times a year. More often at the beginning, when William was still a teenager and living at his adoptive parents' house in Wyoming, a little less often during college, and only once in a while since his enrollment in medical school, studying long hours in order to follow his birth mother into the profession of forensic pathology.

Mulder had kept his promise. He'd found a way for all of them to meet without putting William or the Van De Kamps or themselves at risk. He had searched for a little unflashy house in a small town so typically American that thousands of them existed throughout the country. A town so average that travelers instantly forgot it as soon as they passed through it. A hidden, uncharted road which looks like it's leading nowhere takes a turn behind one of the hundreds of huge identical wheat fields of the area and gets the car eventually to a gravel road. At this point at the latest, any driver would think he took a wrong fork somewhere, would turn the car around and go all the way back to the main road. The people knowing this place, however, quickly glance into the rearview mirror and move on, following the dirt path another ten miles up to an inconspicuous wooden house with a gray roof and blue window frames.

This little house serves as Mulder's and Scully's hideout for secret family gatherings with their son and his adoptive parents. It's so remote that their mobile phones cannot be located due to lack of network coverage. The evergreen bushes and trees surrounding the house are so big that even from a chopper above it's invisible. The house itself is technically shielded against surveillance of any kind.

Every time they drive up the last few hundred yards and the house comes into her sight, Scully has to think back to the first time they took that road. It was about a year after they had received William's letter. It had taken Mulder that long to figure out a procedure, to find the perfect place, and to inform the Van De Kamps. Skinner - who else? - had been a great help.

* * *

 **A SUMMER DAY SEVERAL YEARS PRIOR**

Scully hasn't been able to sleep for three days before their first get-together in the house Mulder found; out of pure excitement and joy, for one, but also out of apprehension. How will it go? Will they be able to connect? What expectations will be directed at her? Will she meet those expectations? Those are only a few of the questions that have been torturing her. The closer they approach the house, the sicker she feels. Mulder even has to pull over once to let her empty her stomach on the side of the road.

When they pull up in front of the house and the moment has finally arrived, the moment she'll be allowed to take her son into her arms 15 years after she last rocked him, the excitement and joy outweigh the apprehension by far. Also because of the way William is running toward them, shouting "they're here, they're here!" with beaming eyes and a demeanor telling her how much he has longed for this moment to finally be here. Still, she lets Mulder go first, taking pleasure in how he hugs William and marveling that they are the same height now. What a difference compared to when he last nestled the baby boy up to his chest. Regardless of the many years that have passed, the way Mulder folds his arms around William shows Scully that his love for his son and the wish to protect him hasn't changed a bit.

When they've pulled back and spoken a few words, William looks at Scully, his eyes connecting with hers. She's nailed to the ground, so much in awe that she's unable to move. She has to lean against the car to keep her balance. "Mom!" he shouts cheerfully in her direction, "William," she whispers to herself. And then he's standing right in front of her, and all she can do is cup his face with trembling hands, staring into his eyes which have the same ocean blue color as hers. Her biggest wish has come to fulfillment. Her entire world has shrunk to the square foot of bliss where she's standing together with her son. She doesn't notice Mulder watching them in silent delight, nor Walter and Helen who are standing arm in arm on the porch equally touched by the reunion of mother and son.

"Dr. Scully, Dana, uhm, Mom...I'm so glad you came," William says.

"William," Scully breathes in a broken voice, "you can't imagine how glad I am. I never dared to dream this would ever happen."

After a short warming-up phase of getting to know each other, the Van De Kamps and Mulder and Scully start really bonding with each other, which is specifically remarkable for two parental couples loving the same boy and looking on him as their son. Whoever anticipated any retinence, caution or even rejection would've been surprised by the amount of appreciation and openness William's birth parents and adoptive parents approach each another with.

William can't stop grinning like a Cheshire cat for the entire weekend. The conversation runs smoothly once it's settled that he will call his birth parents Fox and Dana when they're all together to avoid confusion. His adoptive parents have also made it known that they are okay with him calling Mulder and Scully dad and mom whenever he feels like it. Walter and Helen are staying in the background, though, as this first weekend is mainly assigned to William and his birth parents.

Scully simply can't take her eyes off her son. She observes him and internalizes every step he takes around the house, every gesture he makes, every word he says. She studies his body language, noticing that he doesn't have his long teenage limbs entirely under control. At the dinner table, she isn't really following the conversation as her mind is completely focused on William - how he beams at one of them after the other, how he shovels huge amounts of food into his mouth all at once, how he laughs at Mulder's jokes, how he nervously tucks his hair behind his ear. She catches herself thinking 'the boy needs a haircut' and smiles inwardly at this rather pragmatic motherly thought.

Once in a while, she's afraid that what she's seeing right in front of her eyes is nothing but a dream, that she might wake up any second to realize none of this is truly happening. It's only after dinner, when she's snuggling into Mulder's embrace out on the porch under the starlit sky which is so much brighter than in the city, when she's feeling him pinch her and hearing him whisper soft assurances into her ear, that she dares to believe that her imagination isn't tricking her.

For Scully, it's enough just to be with William, to be able to watch him, hear him, smell him, feel him; take him in with every single one of her senses. William however, being the impatient, impulsive and straightforward teenager he is, can hardly keep his curiosity in check. He's waited so long to meet his birth parents that on their second day together he fires one question at them after another:

 _How old are you?_  
 _Do you live in a house or in an apartment?_  
 _How did you two meet?_  
 _What is your favorite basketball team? (A question that leads to some kind of argument between father and son.)_  
 _Can I see your FBI badges?_  
 _Do you ski?_  
 _Do you have any more kids? (Scully decides that it is not the right time to mention Emily.)_  
 _Have you ever been to Wyoming?_  
 _Do you like pasta?_  
 _Where were you born?_

And so on and so on and so on.

Mulder and Scully willingly answer all his questions and are amused by the randomness of their order. He seems to voice whatever pops up in his head at a given moment, and very probably he doesn't intend to evoke the feelings he prompts with one of them:

 _What was it like for you when I was gone?_

The three of them are sitting outside on the porch, enjoying the warmth and smell of summer, but the moment Scully hears the words, suddenly, the sky seems to have swallowed the sun's warming beams. Heavy, gray clouds are darkening her soul, the brightness and the easiness of the moment is gone as the darkness has sneaked in.

Although William hardly knows his mother, he reads her body language well. "You don't have to answer me if you don't want to."

"It's alright, William. It's a legitimate question, and you deserve to know. It's just..." She inhales deeply and closes her eyes briefly to steady her voice, "I've never told anybody. Not even your father." She looks at Mulder whose face displays sympathy and also a bit of concern.

Scully licks her lips and massages her temples. An agonizing headache has come out of nowhere as the memory she's kept inside a securely locked drawer in the depths of her heart is coming forward with a vengeance.

"Scully," Mulder touches her lower arm in an attempt to intervene.

"I'm fine, Mulder."

"Yes, sure! I can see how fine you are," he scoffs.

Scully flashes him an appreciative smile. "There was a time I wanted to share this with you, Mulder, but then, somehow, I missed the chance and with it I also lost the strength to do it. And I know why." Her voice breaks. She puts both her hands on her chest. "Because it still hurts. Here," she whispers.

"Mom, I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you."

"It's not your fault, Will. None of this is your fault. Let me do this. It might be healing not only for me but for all of us." She doesn't know how but she manages to throw them both a weak smile. "Just hear me out. Let me talk and simply listen. I have to do this in one go. If you have any questions, you can ask them later. Would that be okay with you?" She looks at William and Mulder and both nod silently.

Scully sits up straight, inhales deeply through her nose and wipes her palms dry on her thighs. She looks for a point in the distance to focus on. She finds a blackberry bush full of ripe berries. They look delicious, and their deep, glossy purple color make her want to get up and pick them and bake some muffins rather than let her mind go back to the worst time of her life.

"You already know why I gave you up for adoption, William. You weren't safe with me and I was afraid I couldn't protect you. The rational part of myself, the one sensible to logical reasoning, understood perfectly. Of course, adoption was the only chance for you to have a normal life, so why was I so hesitant? Well, although it's not obvious to many people, I also have an emotional side, and this one was irrational and selfish and couldn't let go so easily. This side kept telling me that a child belonged to their mother and that you should stay with me no matter what."

Scully is addressing her son but can't take her eyes off the blackberry bush. It's her anchor to keep her composure. William is sitting absolutely motionless in his chair, observing his mother's face with wide eyes, reading her despair and her pain on it.

"All through my pregnancy, your birth, and the time thereafter, I was afraid that I wouldn't be allowed to keep you, and now I was considering giving you away on my own accord? How could I? I had wanted you so badly. You were my miracle child, my everything, my only link to Mulder, and I didn't even know whether he was still alive."

Mulder groans and moves stiffly, the wooden chair creaking under his weight.

"I knew that I would never be able to do it alone, that I needed help. So I asked the agent who was with me when you were born to support me. Her name was Monica. Monica Reyes."

Scully pauses for a moment. So far, so good. That was the easy part of the story, the difficult is yet to come. She takes strength from the fact that her son is now sitting in front of her, that the three of them have reunited. They aren't living as a family but Mulder and she are a part of William's life and he's part of theirs. That's more than she has ever dared to hope for. The story has lost some of its dread, but she's still traumatized by the events which took place so many years ago.

"On our last night together, I took you with me to my bed. I built a cocoon around you with blankets and pillows and looked at you all night. I didn't dare to close my eyes for even a minute, I didn't want to miss any of the little bit of time I had left with you. I tried to memorize every feature of your face, the way you sucked on your pacifier, your smell. You were sleeping so soundly and peacefully, like an angel." Her face lights up a little upon this memory and even a slight smile appears at the corners of her mouth. "Your hands were twitching every now and then which made me squeeze them. Out of a reflex you grabbed my finger and held on. I knew you were completely oblivious about what was about to happen to you, but the way you clutched my finger and didn't let go... As if you sensed our paths were going to seperate the next day and tried to keep it from happening by simply holding on to me." The smile on Scully's face is gone, her features are stony again. "The next morning, I bathed you, fed you, changed you, got you dressed, cuddled you, sang you a song...until Monica knocked at my door to pick us up."

Mulder makes a move toward her but Scully motions for him to remain where he is. "Please, don't!" she says. As much as she'd appreciate his strong arms around her shoulders holding her tight, she knows it would make her break down and burst out into tears, leaving her unable to finish her story. She's so very close to the edge that any external impulse would make her hit rock bottom. Although it's difficult for Mulder to let her go down this path alone, having to observe how much she's struggling with the painful memories, he respects her wish.

"Monica drove us to the adoption agency. She was actually meant to be my backing, to support me with the procedures, but then I simply couldn't go in. There I was, holding the most precious being in my arms," Scully shakes her head, "I just couldn't bring myself to let go. How could I give away the child I had so badly longed for? The child I had together with the man I loved but who was already lost to me? The child who was the first good thing that had happened to me in a very long time? The child that had made every sacrifice of the previous years worthwhile? Well, I couldn't. I simply couldn't. I wasn't strong enough."

"What did you do?" William whispers, clearly shaken by his mother's story.

"I asked Monica to spare me physically handing you over to one of the agency workers, and thankfully she agreed. So I gave her the papers I had signed the night before, told her the name of the social worker I had talked to, filled her in about the expected procedures, and then..."

Then the moment was there, the moment she had to say goodbye to her beloved son. For good. The last cuddle, the last smile, the last kiss had been almost impossible to bear. She remembered pressing William to her chest, whispering into his ear that she loved him and that his daddy loved him. She remembered how he had smiled at her in return, reaching out with his chubby little baby hand for a strand of her hair, grabbing and pulling it. A gurgling sound had emerged from him, a laugh almost. He had been happy and satisfied, had felt safe and taken care of in her arms, and she would be giving him away.

"I tried not to cry. I wanted to show you a smile the last time you saw my face. I knew you wouldn't remember me, that you'd soon get accustomed to your new mom and her face, her voice, her smell. I knew that soon you'd forget all about me and one day, my existence would be nothing but a faint imagination of your birth mother you made up in your head, but still, I thought the last thing you saw of me shouldn't be tears coming from red, puffy eyes but a loving smile and eyes telling you that everything will turn out fine."

"Jesus, Scully," Mulder can't remain quiet anymore, "listening to you hurts me physically. I know that for someone as strong as you nothing is more annoying than being weak, but for God's sake, no one comes out of something like this strong, not even you. You should've talked to someone about this. If not to me, to someone else." He clenches and releases his fists several times, but Scully doesn't really take notice. She doesn't even get that he's angry with her for having carried this within her for so very long. She's too focused on herself and continues unwaveringly, making Mulder's heart ache more with every additional detail she reveals.

"Monica asked me one last time whether I really wanted to go through with it. I didn't answer her, I couldn't. Instead, I laid you in her arms, turned around and walked away. The only way for me to do it was quick. I knew the longer I waited, the more difficult it would become for me until I would eventually call the whole thing off. And I couldn't let that happen. I had to get you out of harm's way, whatever the cost. That's what I was supposed to do as your mother."

What she doesn't tell them is that William started to cry the moment his mother's face had disappeared from his view. Scully understood it was his way to let his environment know he was uncomfortable, at his age there wasn't much else he could do but cry. So he cried, for he had learned that when he cried she would dash to him, pick him up, rock him, whisper soothing words into his ear until he calmed down. Not this time. This time she would ignore his pleading for her to look after him, this time her mother's heart would act deaf to his crying, widening the gap between them instead of closing it. William's whimper faded the more the distance between them grew with her walking away, and eventually it died away when Monica closed the door to the agency behind them, but it had continued ringing in Scully's ears for the time being. The sound of her baby crying because she was abandoning him had haunted her for a long time, and even today it still sneaks itself into a bad dream once in a while.

"I don't know how I got home, and I can't recall how I survived the following days."

It's the truth. She's asked herself many times if it was a self-protective mechanism of her soul that spared her reliving those first days of agony and despair over and over again by blocking them from her memory. Partial amnesia can be a good thing.

"A week or so after you were gone, I started working again. It kept me busy and distracted. So, during the day I functioned quite well. I performed autopsies, helped Doggett and Reyes with a case now and then, taught young agents at the academy. At night, though, I couldn't keep myself from thinking of you all the time. My whole apartment reminded me of you, every corner and every item were tied to a memory of you. Like the little rubber duck I found between the sofa cushions one day or the empty space where your crib had been standing. When I got into bed I was greeted by the smell you had left on your last night. There were times I literally let myself plunge into the pain, looking at some of the few pictures I had of you with Mulder or myself. The loneliness was the worst. I didn't see any use in going home anymore because there was no one to come home to. What I had left of my energy I put into the search for Mulder. He was all I had, and he needed to know what I had done. I was so afraid you would never forgive me, Mulder."

For the first time in her story, Scully addresses Mulder and looks at him. Her eyes are dry but full of sadness.

"I had no right to judge your decision," Mulder answers in a flat voice. "I knew you hadn't given him up just like that. I pitied you so much that you had to do it all alone. This is something I've never forgiven myself."

Scully and Mulder lock eyes. The exchange of words isn't necessary as both know exactly what the other is feeling.

"Wow," William mutters into the silence. "How come I don't remember any of this?"

"You were too little. Childhood memories start at around the age of three at the earliest," Scully explains.

"But I remembered your face, Mom, and your eyes. I hadn't forgotten you. When I saw you in the gym, I had the strong feeling I knew you, so I guess I must've remembered something."

"I don't have a real explanation for it, William. Maybe because your eyes resemble mine so much, and we have the same hair color, maybe that's why I looked familiar to you."

"Do you want to know what I think?" Mulder asks.

"Yes," William says. "No," Scully replies directly thereafter.

Mulder only grins. "Well, it's William's questioning time, isn't it?"

Scully purses her lips whereas William is smiling contentedly.

"William did remember you, his subconscious did. He's a special kid, and your connection was...is...special." He keeps to himself the alien DNA they're sharing and the all but ordinary circumstances of his conception and birth. "This was meant to happen, Scully. You were meant to reunite with your son."

"But, Dad, you're also important to me," William speaks out loud what Scully only thinks to herself.

"I do hope so, but look, I wasn't there when your mother found out she was pregnant, I wasn't there for most of her pregnancy, I wasn't there when you were born, I wasn't there for most of the time she cared for you, and what is the most unforgivable, I wasn't there when she had to give you up for adoption. Your mother handled all of this alone with so much strength, determination, and devotion that I sometimes ask myself what I was needed for in the first place."

"Well, Mulder, there's this one essential contribution you made," Scully reminds him, arching an eyebrow.

"Which was what?" William asks eagerly before he gets the idea. "Ah, oh, uhm, ...yes, sure!" The teenager clears his throat while Mulder and Scully look surreptitiously at each other for having embarrassed their son.

"You guys went through a lot because of me," William comments with a contrite expression on his face.

"That's not the right way to put it, Will," Scully says. "You had to go through a lot because you were our son. That's why I wanted you to become someone else's."

"You know what strikes me just now?" Now it's William who's looking at the blackberry bush as if the answers to all the important questions were hanging in its branches.

Mulder and Scully both shake their heads.

"I have this schoolmate who also is an adopted child. We're not really friends, but when we found out we're both adopted there was some common ground to base a conversation on. We talked quite a bit about what we feel about growing up with parents other than our birth parents. He is really at odds with his situation. His adoptive parents are really good to him, he has two siblings, lives in a big house. I mean, he has every reason to be happy and satisfied, and yet he isn't. He has this anger inside that he has once been given up. He feels his birth mother has betrayed him, abandoned him, treated him like trash. Yeah, I think those were the words he used, 'she disposed of me like trash'."

Scully closes her eyes. Would this be the day of reckoning after all? Would she be blamed now for not having had the courage to keep him? For having given up on him?

"I never had that feeling, ever," William goes on. When he sees his mother shake her head in disbelief, her blue eyes boring into him, he further assures, "Honestly, Mom, never! I'm not making this up!"

"Are you saying that you were never mad at me, angry, bitter? Not even a tiny bit?"

"No! Maybe because my parents have always told me that I was not given up because I was unwanted, but because I was loved. It was like a mantra they were humming to me over and over again, but I also felt it was true. Here." He puts a hand on the left side of his chest.

"Really?" Scully whispers.

"Really."

"That has always been my biggest fear, you know?"

"I can imagine, but I somehow always knew that there were two people out there caring for me. I guess that's why I wanted to find you so badly."

"So hard to believe," Scully ponders.

"Oh, Scully, when will you stop being such an inconvincible skeptic? I thought a quarter of a century together with me would've left you a bit more adept in accepting the inexplicable," Mulder now chimes in.

"Yeah, Mom, you simply have to believe!"

"Wonderful," Scully massages her temples again, "so now after being told for ages by my partner that I have to believe, my son is taking the same line? Does this run in your family, Mulder?"

"If so, it looks like it's a dominant gene, whereas your skepticism is obviously recessive." Mulder grins triumphantly.

"Come on, Dad, even you must know that attitudes and behavior like skepticism or the tendency to believe are not hereditary but socially acquired."

"Wow," Mulder says, "we have a mixed form here, Scully! A skeptical believer. Or a believing skeptic?"

The three of them look at each other until all of them burst out in a hearty laugh, and with this moment, the ice is finally broken. All has been said and they start facing their future together rather than the lack of having shared most of the past. Scully's painful journey through time has indeed been healing, and although the many years they've spent apart are irretrievably lost to them, they embrace the chance they have been given to share each other's whole coming life.

Walter and Helen observe with pleasure and relief how their son is bonding with his biological parents, which can be looked at as utterly incredible. It most certainly isn't usual for adoptive parents to welcome the birth parents of their child so warmly and openly. Whether it's because fate owed them compensatory justice for what it had put them through or simply because of the good nature of five people thrown together by cosmic forces, nobody bothers to figure out. They enjoy each other's company and become a patchwork family by the end of the weekend.

* * *

 **SOME SUMMER DAY AGAIN**

"Where have you guys been? We've been waiting for you the whole morning!" William asks his birth parents reproachfully. It seems, their arrival has been awaited impatiently.

"Your mother had to perform an unplanned autopsy this morning, Will, and I'm not the guy to arouse a police officer's interest with violating speed limits."

They haven't told William every detail about Mulder's conviction on a charge of murder and his subsequent prison break. All he knows is that his birth father was on the run from the FBI and that his mother was accused of aiding and abetting.

"And calling wasn't an option as you don't get any signals here anyway."

The lack of network coverage, which serves them well in protecting the house from being located, doesn't work to their advantage in case of a delay or alteration of plans.

"Never mind, now that you're here! Let's go inside!"

"Let me get our luggage first," Mulder says.

"Leave it, Dad! You can do that later. "

Mulder and Scully look at each other somewhat bewildered. Usually, William welcomes them much more emotionally, hugging them both tightly, asking them how their trip was and helping them with the luggage. Today, he seems to be eager to shove them into the house as quickly as possible.

William's already at the top of the five stairs leading to the porch when he turns around and sees his parents still standing next to the car. "You coming?"

Mulder shrugs. He puts his hand on Scully's back and nudges her a bit forward. "Your son wants you inside the house, Scully."

"Sure, now he's my son. When he scores a three-point shot, he's yours."

"You bet! I wonder who he got that commanding attitude from, though."

"Oh, shut up, Mulder!"

"Mom! Dad! Move it!

Once Mulder and Scully have passed the threshold, William grabs Scully's upper arm and drags her through the hallway into the living room where a young woman awaits them. She turns around, smiles and quickly closes the gap between herself and Scully.

"Dana, so good to see you again!"

The two women embrace, the younger about a head taller than Scully.

"Good to see you, too, Stephanie. It's been too long."

They haven't seen each other in a while. The last couple of times they met with William in this house, Stephanie was busy with work or otherwise occupied. Scully had begun to worry and had asked William if everything was alright between them. He assured her that it was.

Stephanie turns to Mulder. "Hello, Fox!"

Mulder presses her to his chest, kisses her hair, and replies, "Hello, my lovely daughter-in-law!"

"Good that you're finally here. Will and I have a surprise for you," Stephanie announces with sparkling eyes.

"A surprise? Seeing you already is a wonderful surprise. William didn't tell us you were coming," Scully says. She loves her daughter-in-law dearly. She's good for William and accepts their somewhat peculiar family structure.

Since the reunification with their son, Mulder and Scully have been grateful to be involved in all the important moments of his life. They wouldn't have even known whether he graduated, met a woman he wanted to marry, or walked down the aisle, if they hadn't found a way to stay in the loop about the big changes in William's life. Although they wouldn't allow themselves to attend any of the festivities because of the safety risks they still believe exist, they take pleasure in observing his journey through life from a distance.

"Mom, Dad," they hear William's voice, "here's someone who wants to make your acquaintance." With this, he appears from behind his wife rocking a little pink bundle in his arm.

Mulder's and Scully's jaws drop. They stare at each other, then at their son who is obviously carrying a baby in his arms, flashing them a cheerful grin. Scully collapses into a nearby chair and Mulder leans himself against a wall.

"I say we really surprised them, Steph, what do you think?" William asks his wife.

"Hmmm, I'm not sure, Will. Maybe your parents are just tired from the trip and need to rest."

"Have you ever seen them this speechless?"

"I don't think so. When we told them we were getting married they were much more excited, weren't they?"

"Definitely, but look at them now! I can practically see what's going on in their heads," William says, positioning himself directly next to his wife, observing his parents in their effort to let the surprise sink in.

"How did this happen?" Mulder asks flabbergasted. "Why didn't you tell us earlier?" Scully adds completely stunned.

"Yeah, something like that!" William chuckles, but then, with an earnest expression on his face, he explains. "Given your history, we didn't want to raise any hopes or anticipation before everything worked out well. We knew that if anything went wrong it would be devastating especially for you, Mom. So we decided to keep this sweet little secret to ourselves." He kisses the baby's forehead.

"That's why we haven't seen you recently, Stephanie. You lied to us, William," Scully now understands.

"Please, don't be mad at us. We only wanted to protect you."

"I can't believe it," Mulder mumbles, "We're grandparents, Scully!"

"My baby has a baby." Scully is still so much taken off-guard by the situation that she can hardly think straight, let alone move.

William looks at the baby girl in his arms, cooing to her on his way over to Scully. "Sweetheart, may I introduce you to your grandmother Dana? You have to understand how lucky you are to have three wonderful grandmothers. Do you want to hold her, Mom?"

Scully looks up from the chair and nods. She doesn't trust her legs and fears they might give out from under her if she stands up, but of course she wants to hold her granddaughter. "Sure," she breathes and reaches out for the tiny bundle. William places his daughter in Scully's arms with a loving smile that's meant for both.

"Oh, my," Scully's voice is a whisper. She stares at the rosy baby face and gets instantly lost in the girl's big blue eyes. "She's adorable." She presses the child to her cheek and inhales deeply. "I forgot how tiny and soft they are and how good they smell." Then she studies the baby's face again and sees both William and Stephanie in it. "She's a perfect combination of the two of you. Congratulations! This is probably the most wonderful surprise that's ever been given to me beside my own pregnancy." Suddenly Scully's sparkling face darkens a bit. "Have you checked her through, Will? Is she..."

"Mom, everything is alright with her. She's absolutely normal, no anomalies whatsoever. Some features are obviously passed on only from the mother to the child, not from the father." He's referring to the alien DNA he inherited from Scully. When William had become a married man, they had wised him up about what made him so special and that he might possibly pass it on to his children.

What William just said takes a heavy load off Scully and she sighs in relief, although she'd very much like to examine her granddaughter's DNA herself one day, just to be sure. But it's nothing she worries about right now, right now she's simply amazed by the enchanting little human being in her arms who looks at her with innocent eyes, conquering her heart in no time.

"She's beautiful. Mulder, look!"

Mulder slowly approaches Scully and the baby. Until now, he's simply watched her delight. He hasn't seen her like this since she placed her own son in his arms, telling him she would name him William after his father. She had never been more beautiful to him than at this very moment. Like then, a motherly aura surrounds her now, displaying her protective instinct and her willingness to love and care for this little human being no matter what. Indefinite and unconditional devotion emanates from every fiber of her being, traits he also is a grateful recipient of. He doesn't mind sharing these extraordinary gifts with his granddaughter.

Mulder squats next to the chair and looks at the baby in Scully's arms to get a glimpse of the new member of their family. "Red hair," he observes, "some features are still passed on from the father to the child."

"Yeah, well, but we didn't name her Fox," William jokes.

"What a lucky girl you are!" Mulder tells her, stroking her cheek tenderly with his index finger.

"What is her name?" Scully asks.

William waits a moment before he answers. With a cheerful smile on his face he then announces his daughter's name, "Dana Victoria Van De Kamp."

Scully's heart skips a beat and she's glad she's still sitting. Now, at the very least, her knees would've been shaky. Instantly, tears well up in her eyes. She stares speechlessly first at William, then at Stephanie and Mulder, and then at William again.

"Yes, Mom, we named her after you."

"Oh my God, I'm so honored," Scully whispers, completely amazed and unable to say more.

"You had a baby and had to give it up, this one will be forever yours to keep. You can catch up on the things you missed with me, Mom. It won't give you back what you've lost, but maybe it can ease some of your wounds."

The tears are now rolling down Scully's cheeks unrestrainedly. She feels Mulder squeeze her shoulders and hears him say, "This is a wonderful idea, William. Naming her after your mother most certainly is a much better idea than naming her after me." His joke makes him chuckle briefly but he quickly becomes earnest again. He throws William a thankful look. "You can't imagine how much this means to your mother, to the both of us."

In awe, Mulder is looking at his granddaughter in Scully's arms. The baby seems to be perfectly at ease with being held and stared at by them. He lifts his eyes to lock with Scully's, a warm smile sneaking from the edge of his lips. "You know what this reminds me of, don't you?"

Scully nods. She presses her lips together to keep her chin from shaking. "I was so full of joy and gratitude, Fox. We were finally together, we had a beautiful baby, we kissed. I was so confident and looking forward to my future life. And then, shortly thereafter, all my hopes and dreams were shattered. What if this is also not meant to last?"

Mulder's heart convulses when he hears the apprehension in Scully's voice. He speaks to her in a firm and clear tone, carrying his wish to dissipate her anxieties but also to assure her of his determination. "Don't be afraid. This time, we won't let those sons of bitches take anything away from us. For three decades they've been trying to break us, but look at us, Dana, we're still here, with our son and his wife, and with our granddaughter. Nothing and no one will keep me from protecting this refuge here and our little happiness. I swear to God!"

It's the first time William hears his parents call each other by their first names and the sound of it strikes him. He's touched by his mother's gut-wrenching doubts and likewise by his father's forceful statements. Then he sees his parents lean in and share the most tender kiss he has ever seen, his daughter nestled between them. He's not aware, of course, that they're reliving a moment which is very precious to both of them.

Myriad emotions leave Scully torn and unable to think straight. There's joy because of William's fatherhood which has blessed her with a little granddaughter she already adores. There's the sweet memory of a moment in time when her life seemed to be perfect. And there's Mulder's soft mouth on hers in a promising kiss. But there's also the nagging worry that the alien DNA which had been planted into her genome and thus been given to her son might have passed on to her granddaughter; she won't be convinced little Dana is entirely healthy and safe until she finds out herself. There's the underlying feeling that their opponents are still out there and the worry they might be willing and able to strike again whenever they please. And, superimposing it all, there's the ultimate fear of experiencing yet another loss. The mere thought that the long list of people Mulder and she have already lost could be continued alarms her. She wouldn't survive another fundamental setback.

It's Mulder's kiss that tips the scales, a kiss which is like a deja vu but then again it isn't. With their granddaughter amidst them instead of their son it's rather like a resumption of what they once had, only upon other terms, as if they were opening another chapter in their book of life. With Mulder's lips on hers, his caring hands on her cheeks, and with the promise embodied in the newcomer to this world in her arms, Scully feels an inspiring force flowing through her body. Something she's never felt before and can't quite figure out. The dark thoughts, the fears and doubts, seem to be losing their power over her. They're regressing as if they understood that the battle is lost. They make room for lightness and for unfamiliar feelings such as hope, confidence and optimism, feelings Scully almost hasn't allowed herself to believe in anymore. Her heart unexpectedly leaps when she realizes that what she has struggled with for the longest time is so easy all of a sudden: she believes.

She believes that she will see little Dana grow up, see her teething, making her first steps, starting school. If she lived long enough she might even see her getting married one day.  
She believes that William and his family will be safe, not having to worry about super soldiers or conspiracies or any other unidentified, merciless force.  
She believes Mulder's and her love for one another will never die, that they will grow old together in their lovely country house.  
She believes that she's eventually ready to make her peace with what has happened to her in her life, that everything turns out alright after all.

Special Agent Dana Scully believes that they have chased all the monsters away. For good. Finally.

 **THE END**


End file.
